he was not treated with becoming courtesy, and of course had no social triumphs such as Franklin had enjoyed at Paris.  Finding that he could not accomplish what he had desired and hoped for, he became disgusted, possibly embittered, and sent in his resignation, after a three years’ residence in London, and returned home.  Altogether, his career as a diplomatist was not a great success; his comparative failure, however, was caused rather by the difficulties he had to surmount than by want of diplomatic skill.  If he was not as successful as had been hoped, he returned with unsullied reputation.  He had made no great mistakes, and had proved himself honest, incorruptible, laborious, and patriotic.  The country appreciated his services, when, under the new Constitution, the consolidated Union chose its rulers, and elevated him to the second office in the republic.

The only great flaw in Adams as Vice-President was his strange jealousy of Washington,—­a jealousy hardly to be credited were it not for the uniform testimony of historians.  But then in public estimation he stood second only to the “Father of his Country.”  He stood even higher than Hamilton, between whom and himself there were unpleasant relations.  Indeed, Adams’s dislike of both Hamilton and Jefferson was to some extent justified by unmistakable evidences of enmity on their part.  The rivalries and jealousies among the great leaders of the revolutionary period are a blot on our history.  But patriots and heroes as those men were, they were all human; and Adams was peculiarly so.  By universal consent he is conceded to have been a prime factor in the success of the Revolution.  He held back Congress when reconciliation was in the air; he committed the whole country to the support of New England, and gave to the war its indispensable condition of success,—­the leadership of Washington; he was called by Jefferson “the Colossus of debate in carrying the Declaration of Independence” and cutting loose from England; he was wise and strong and indefatigable in governmental construction, as well as in maintaining the armies in the field; he accomplished vast labors affecting both the domestic and foreign relations of the country, and, despite his unpleasant personal qualities of conceit and irritability, his praise was in every mouth.  He could well afford to recognize the full worth of every one of his co-laborers.  But he did not.  Magnanimity was certainly not his most prominent trait.

The duties of a vice-president hardly allow scope for great abilities.  The office is only a stepping-stone.  There was little opportunity to engage in the debates which agitated the country.  The duties of judicially presiding over the Senate are not congenial to a man of the hot temper and ambition of Adams; and when party lines were drawn between the Federalists and Republicans he earnestly espoused the principles of the former.  He was in no sense a democrat except in his recognition of popular political rights.