l'H'niil..nl,; 

 Hon, was 



lill.-, W;.H tin. HO- 



John Quiiicy Ailaiii 

 the KixUi I'l-csiclcnt. 



John Adams was our first inin- 

 i.ster to England, John Quincy 

 Adahis also was minister to F.n^- 

 larul, iind Charles Kranois Adams, 

 Iho grandson of the second Pres- 

 ident, for seven years filled that 

 great post under conditions which 

 made his service comparable only 

 with that rendered the American 

 republic by Benjamin Franklin. 



John Adams was one of the throe 

 coi-nmissioners who negotiated the 

 peace that terminated the war for 

 independence; John Quincy Adams 

 was one of the five commissioners 

 who arranged the treaty which 

 ended the second war with Eng- 

 land; Charles Francis Adams was 

 the American member of the court 

 of arbitration of five members 

 which decided the Alabama Claims. 



John Quincy Adams was only 11 

 years old when he went with bis 

 father on his first mission to Paris 

 in 1778 as his secretary and he 

 served in tlie same capacity when 

 his father was busy with the nego- 

 tiations which ended the revolution; 

 Henry Adams as a young man was 

 secretary to his father, the Amer- 

 ican minister in London, through, 

 the civil war period; Brooks Adams,! 

 also in early manhood, attended his[ 

 father in a like capacity during the 

 Alabama arbitration proceedings, t 

 Perhaps it is not too much to say' 

 that the histor.v of no country ofToraf 

 a precisely parallel record to that! 

 of which some features are here in- I 

 dicated. And how those Adamses 1 

 .did appreciate each other! The 

 American minister in London wrote 

 'his son. Charles Francis Adams, Jr.^: 

 nearly at the end of the year 1861: 

 "It may be my predilection that 

 biasses my judgment, but I think 

 I see in my father the only picture 

 of a fullgrown statesman that the 

 history of the United States has 

 yet produced." And Henry Adams, 

 as secretary to his father, %vrote 

 from London to his brother in the 

 Union army in 1863: "The minister 

 was grand. I studied his attitude 

 with deep admiration. Not all the ' 

 applications of his friends could.; 

 make him open his mouth to put j 

 the public right on his letter or on 

 the gross falsehoods. . . . The ! 

 time had not come. Of course he 

 was cursed for his obstinacy, but ho 

 is used to that." 



Meantime Charles Francis, the 

 younger, was helping to keep bin 

 fnthnr iin<I h\n hroMirrn vIkIiL alM.ut 

 the qualifications of Abraham Lin- 

 coln. In London they had the no- 

 tion that the government was Se- 

 ward. Tho kccnl.v perceptive cavalry 

 ofilccr wrote thus after fho second 

 iinaugural: 'The rail-splitting lawyer 

 is one of the wonders of the day. 

 ; Once at Gettysburg, and now again 

 on a greater occasion, he has shown 

 a capacity for rising to the demands 

 of the hour which we should not 

 expect from orators or men of the 

 schools. This inaugural strikes me 

 in its grand simplicity and direct- 

 ness as being for all time the his- 

 torical keynote of this war. . . .Not a 



in iin (uhh'ci-iH iI.'Iivi'inmI in llill.. 



Truly 11 wonderful succession. 

 Longevity seems to have boon in 

 the blood. John Adams passed away 

 when nearly 91, John Quincy .'\dam,s 

 in his 81st year, Charles Fi-ancis 

 Adams and one ol" his sons atljiined 

 tho age of SO, and two oLlier sdus 

 were 79. 



One thing many times we have 

 wondered about. After John Quincy 

 Adams retired from the presidency 

 he did not retire from public life. 

 He entered the House of Represen- 

 tatives, and there held a seat from 

 1831 to 1848. In his seat, on the 

 afternoon of Feb. 21 in the latter 

 year, he received his fatal stroke, 

 and he died two days later. Abra- 

 ham Lincoln was a member of 

 that Congress. Did he witness the 

 scene and participate in the excite- 

 ment when the " old man eloquent" 

 iustained that blow? \ 



