A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 105 



divided the country. The Federalists were the only 

 projDer tories our politics have ever produced, whose 

 conservatism truly represented an idea, and not a mere 

 selfish interest, — men who honestly distrusted democ- 

 racy, and stood up for experience, or the tradition which 

 they believed for such, against empiricism. During 

 his CongTcssional career, the government was little more 

 than an attache of the French legation, and the opposi- 

 tion to which he belonged a helpless revenant from the 

 dead and buried Colonial past. There are some ques- 

 tions whose interest dies the moment they are settled ; 

 others, into which a moral element enters that hinders 

 them from being settled, though they may be decided. 

 It is hard to revive any enthusiasm about the Embargo, 

 though it once could inspire the boyish Muse of Bryant, 

 or in the impressment quarrel, though the Trent diffi- 

 culty for a time rekindled its old animosities. The stars 

 in their courses fought against Mr. Quincy's party, 

 which was not in sympathy with the instincts of the 

 people, groping about for some principle of nationality, 

 and finding a substitute for it in hatred of England. 

 But there are several things which still make his career 

 in Congress interesting to us, because they illustrate the 

 personal character of the man. He prepared himself 

 honestly for his duties, by a thorough study of whatever 

 could make him efficient in them. It was not enough 

 that he could make a good speech ; he wished also to 

 have something to say. In Congress, as everywhere else, 

 quod voluit valde voluit ; and he threw a fervor into the 

 most temporary topic, as if his eternal salvation de- 

 pended upon it. He had not merely, as the French say, 

 the courage of his opinions, but his opinions became 

 principles, and gave him that gallantry of fanaticism 

 which made him always ready to head a forlorn hope, — 

 the more ready, perhaps, that it was a forlorn hope 



