106 A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 



This is not the humor of a statesman, — no, unless he 

 holds a position like that of Pitt, and can chai-ge a 

 whole people with his own enthusiasm, and then we 

 call it genius. Mr. Quincy had the moral firmness 

 which enabled him to decline a duel without any loss 

 of personal prestige. His opposition to the Louisiana 

 purchase illustrates that Roman quality in him to which 

 we have alluded. He would not conclude the pur- 

 chase till each of the old thirteen States had signified 

 its assent. He was reluctant to endow a Sabine city 

 with the privilege of Roman citizenship. It is worth 

 noting, that while in Congxess, and afterwards in the 

 State Senate, many of his phrases became the catch- 

 words of party politics. He always dared to say what 

 others deemed it more prudent only to think, and what- 

 ever he said he intensified with the whole ardor of his 

 temperament. It is this which makes Mr. Quincy's 

 speeches good reading still, even when the topics they 

 discussed were ephemeral. In one respect he is dis- 

 tinguished from the politicians, and must rank with the 

 far-seeing statesmen of his time. He early foresaw and 

 denounced the political danger with which the Slave 

 Power threatened the Union. His fears, it is true, were 

 aroused for the balance of power between the old States, 

 rather than by any moral sensitiveness, which would, 

 indeed, have been an anachronism at that time. But 

 the Civil War justified his prescience. 



It was as Mayor of his native city that his remark- 

 able qualities as an administrator were first called into 

 requisition and adequately displayed. He organized the 

 city government, and put it in working order. To him 

 we owe many reforms in police, in the management of 

 the poor, and oi her kindred matters, — much in the 

 way of cure, still more in that of prevention. The place 

 demanded a man of corn-age and firmness, and found 

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