ALABAMA CLAIMS. 93 



Arbitrator, we shall Lave but too much necessity to 

 speak in describing the acts of the Tribunal. 



MR. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



In the American Arbitrator, Mr. Charles Francis 

 Adams, the Tribunal had a member worthy of the 

 companionship of Count Frederic Sclopis. 



In the United States, persons have been found so 

 foolish as to reproach Mr. Adams because of the his- 

 torical eminence of his father and of his grandfather, 

 and even because of the intelligence and cultivation 

 of his sons : as if it were a crime in a Republic for a 

 father to have a good son, or a son a good father, or 

 to live in the holy atmosphere of a succession of w4se 

 and virtuous mothers. 



Besides, if it be meritorious to rise to distinction 

 from lowliness and poverty, it is not less so to resist 

 and overcome the obstacles to personal distinction 

 created by parental station or w^ealth. In this, which 

 is the only correct view of the subject, all men are 

 selfmade. The attributes of Mr. Charles Francis 

 Adams are his own : distinguished parliamentary ca- 

 reer in the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts 

 and in the Congress of the United States, — literary 

 merits of a high order as displayed in his " Life and 

 Writings of John Adams," — able diplomatic repre- 

 sentation of his Government in Great Britain during 

 the whole dark period of our Civil War. He pos- 

 sessed qualities, acquirements, and experience, general 

 and special, which seemed to invite his appointment 

 as American Arbitrator; and in the discharge of the 



