518 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



Van Buren. Though not at all eager for public life, he consented 

 to serve in the State Legislature from 1841 to 1843 in the lower 

 House, and in the upper in 1844 and 1845. At this time he under- 

 took the editorship and chief support of a newspaper in the Anti- 

 slavery Whig interest. In 1848 he accepted the nomination of the 

 Free Soil Party as Vice-President, with Ex-President Van Buren at 

 the head of the ticket. After the election of General Taylor, Mr. 

 Adams was not iu active political life till he was chosen to Congress 

 in 1858, and again in 18G0. In March, 1861, he was appointed 

 Minister to England by President Lincoln, and remained till released 

 by Mr. Johnson, in May, 1868. In 1871 he was on the Geneva 

 Arbitration Commission. In 1873 he delivered a memorable address 

 on Mr. Seward at Albany. In the previous year his name was much 

 canvassed for the Presidency of the United States, and later for tlie 

 Governorship of Massachusetts. Towards the end of his life, the 

 eiFect of his severe anxiety in England was shown by a gradual 

 obscuring of his mind, and he died in Boston on the 18th of Novem- 

 ber, 1886. 



Mr. Adams was chosen a member of this Academy on January 28, 

 1857, in Class HI. Section IV. He was elected Vice-President in 

 1872, and President in 1873. As such he was selected to deliver the 

 Anniversary Address in 1880, and he had made considerable prepara- 

 tion for it ; but finding it a more serious task than he had supposed, 

 his constant reluctance to fall below his own standard induced him to 

 withdraw from its delivery and from the presidency, and for the last 

 six years of his life he lived in retirement. 



Mr. Adams rarely took part in our proceedings, and it might be 

 thought, by a superficial observer, that the services he rendered to us 

 were little more than the giving his name as President, the graceful 

 and dignified occuj^ancy of the chair, and that mutual recognition of 

 distinguished men and distinguished societies which always has been 

 and always should be felt as a source of honor to both. I believe the 

 truth to be far otherwise. I believe the work Mr. Adams did for his 

 country is exactly what we need more of in just such associations at 

 this day ; and that our younger members, who are full of modern ideas 

 of philosophical and scientific work, may well be recalled by his ex- 

 ample to an older and perhaps less common, but none the less noble, 

 conception of the fitting pursuits of a great mind. 



The section to which Mr. Adams belonged was that of Literature 

 and the Fine Arts, and therein imquestionably lay his real and favorite 

 tastes. He engaged in active politics, first by his pen and afterwards 



