believe that those who favored the postponement of hostilities until another attempt had been made in diplomacy, were in the right. And besides, the difficulties with France were of such a nature, that, do as our government would, loud and unjust complaints were sure to follow. Of these, Washington bore his full share; but he bore them in silence. His successor, on the other hand, reproached in ways which one of his temperament was poorly fitted to endure, was driven in the intensity of his pain, in the years of his retirement, to commit the only really reprehensible acts of his life.

That, at the moment, and while the last French mission was the subject of thought and discussion, Mr. Adams is to be held amenable for some ungracious words, and for concealments from official personages who had a right to know his intentions, we admit; but the grave question after all is, whether these intentions, matured into deeds, were such as became a Christian statesman, and whether he preserved the peace of his country without dishonor. As once remarked, is decision to embrace the "indirect" offer to renew negoiations caused a lasting schism in the Federal ranks; and the dissensions to which it gave rise have been perpetuated to our own time, in certain circles, with more or less asperity of feeling; but we apprehend that the general sentiment now is, that Mr. Adams decided wisely. Yet, if it were not so, posterity, we are sure, will have warm praise to bestow on an act which averted the scourge of war.

Of the dissatisfied Federalists, Hamilton was the recog nized head; and it would seem that the earliest determination was to appeal to Washington, to serve a third term. His death occurred while this plan was in agitation. In the subsequent castings about for a candidate, it was urged on the one side, in the letters which have come down to us,

that the renomination of Mr. Adams would ruin, and on the other, that it would save, the Federal party. The final resolve was to support him; but, as in the previous election, with an understanding that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who was selected in room of his brother Thomas for the second place, should have an “equal" chance for the executive chair; Hamilton avowing that he would refuse other

and "direct" support to Mr. Adams, "even though the consequence should be the election of Jefferson." Under such auspices, Federalism entered upon its last conflict with Democracy. It need hardly be said, that those who preferred Mr. Adams, and espoused his cause with hearty good-will, had reason to complain of a device which at the outset countenanced, and which in the end might effect, his degradation from the Presidency of the United States to the Presidency of the Senate.

Whatever the motives of Hamilton and his section of the party, the friends of Jefferson, if left to choose, could not have devised an arrangement more likely to insure the success of the Democratic ticket. To some of the Federalists, indeed, who had assented to Hamilton's views, the measure, on moral grounds, gave no little uneasiness. One of distinguished position wrote to him, that he "abominated the hypocritical part which we have been necessitated to act"; another, that he "never liked the half-way plan which has been pursued," and that he was apprehensive "Federal men are in danger of losing character in the delicate point of sincerity"; a third, that "it is, I confess, awkward and embarrassing to act under the constraints that we do"; still another, that "we must vote for him [Mr. Adams], I suppose, and therefore cannot safely say to every one what we think of him"; and yet a fifth, that "it is true there is an apparent absurdity in supporting a man whom we know to be unworthy of trust," and, again, that, "whatever display is made of Mr. Adams's misconduct, it must be continually recollected that he may be again chosen by us, and that we are pledged to give him a full chance of the united vote concerted at Philadelphia."

These extracts show the misgivings of gentlemen who adhered to Hamilton; the feelings of those who adhered to Mr. Adams can be easily imagined. Add to this state of things, "the pamphlet," which occasioned new disaffection and confusion, where, already, there was quite enough of dis

* "Letter from Alexander Hamilton, concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States," now in Hamilton's Works, Vol. VII. p. 687, which gave offence even to some of the author's warmest admirers.

cord, and we may form some idea of the hopeless prospect of defeating the opposing candidates. With the accusations and recriminations of that day we have nothing to do. We aim only to show that, as Mr. Adams was brought forward originally without unanimity, so he was kept in the field on "compromise," and amid dissensions. Possibly the Alien and Sedition Laws, for which he was made no more responsible by his signature than were Federalists in Congress by their votes, and the last and “fatal mission to France," which was his individual act, may have accelerated the doom of Federalism, just as a man whose lungs are half consumed may hasten the crisis by suicide; but anterior to, and more potent than these, were the causes which we mentioned as we commenced the discussion of the topic.

If it be still insisted that the second President occasioned the fall of his party, he will not be held accountable, surely, for the ill-advised measures which were adopted after it was ascertained that he had failed of re-election. The electoral votes, as all know, were "equal," not, as Hamilton designed them to be, for Adams and Pinckney, but for Jefferson and Burr. Hence, the choice of President devolved upon the House of Representatives. That Jefferson was intended for the first office by every one who had cast a Democratic vote, no man in all America doubted; and why, then, did the Federal members of Congress seek to defeat the popular will? Aaron Burr was a person against whom every gentleman's doors should have been doubly barred and bolted; yet, though warned and entreated by Hamilton in trumpet tones, the States represented by Federalists persisted in opposing Jefferson for days, in thirty-five ballotings, and Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire voted for Burr on the last and thirty-sixth balloting, in which Jefferson was elected.

In moral intent, as appears by the records of Congress, and beyond all dispute by the correspondence of the period, the Federal party, by their authorized exponents, are answerable for the elevation of a man who had not been thought of until they adopted him as a candidate, and whose character was unconditionally detestable. That the Federalists who voted for Aaron Burr polluted themselves, was the sentiment of HamVOL. LXXXV. — NO. 176.

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ilton. Later, when the fatal coils were fast closing around him, he uttered, in his painful survey of the past, these despairing words: "Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself. I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends, no less than the curses of its foes, for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more, that this American world was not made for me." Would this letter have been written, if the Federal members of Congress, one and all, had pronounced, as did John Marshall, that they would "take no part" in the contest between Jefferson and Burr? Without Federal votes in that contest, would a "majority" of the Federalists in New York have supported Burr for Governor, in 1804; and without these instances of Federal complicity, would Hamilton have become involved beyond extrication in that final encounter?

We lament that Mr. Adams did not bear his personal and his political griefs meekly. Never was it more necessary to observe the proverb of the old Hebrews, that, "If a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two." His peace and his position in history alike demanded of him seeming obliviousness of whatever in the past had been painful. Censure and obloquy are the price which eminent men have been compelled to pay to contemporaries in all ages, and they should always leave their vindication to those who come after them. When a Cæsar whimpers, the world holds down its head; and Cæsar may himself be sure that, if he cry but once, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink," Cassius will find a day to taunt him with his weakness.

Our task is finished. We have endeavored to be simply just. As now we are compelled to remember that the good man, whose Life and Works are before us, and who, of all men, should have lived and died a Federalist, threw himself into the arms of his "ancient enemies," and became a Democrat with Federal principles, let us also remember, that happy are those of our race whose most questionable acts occur under accumulated mental sufferings, and the ailments of an

aged frame. Let us say, too, that happy is the private citizen, or the time-worn statesman, who passes away to his rest, and to his reward, as did JOHN ADAMS, with the united acclaim of friend and foe, that he was a man of " unconquerable intrepidity, and of incorruptible integrity." As yet, the extent and the value of the services which he rendered to the AngloSaxon race are not generally understood or appreciated. The means of better information are afforded by these volumes; and most earnestly do we commend them to the study of the young men of our country, who, soon to come upon the theatre of affairs, will seek some guide, and who may safely form their characters, public and private, upon a model which had neither a vice nor a crime to tarnish a long, varied, and unprecedentedly arduous career.

ART. II.1. Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical; or the Conditions and Course of the Life of Man. By JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M. D., LL. D., Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New York. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1856. 8vo. pp. 649. 2. The Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces. By WILLIAM B. Carpenter, M. D., Examiner in Physiology and Comparative Anatomy in the University of London. From the "Philosophical Transactions," Part II., for 1850. London. 1850. 4to. pp. 37.

3. The Correlation of Physical Forces. By W. R. GROVE, M. A., F. R. S., Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition. London. 1850. 8vo. pp. 119.

4. Caloric; its Mechanical, Chemical, and Vital Agencies in the Phenomena of Nature. By SAMUEL L. METCALFE, M. D., of Transylvania University. London. 1843. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 1100.

THE appearance of Professor Draper's ingenious and original treatise on Physiology must call the attention of a large class of readers to those higher questions of the science which