Massachusetts was the chief commercial State in the Union.  She saw the ruin of her commerce involved in the policy of Jefferson, and regarded it as an unworthy concession to the usurper of the French throne.  In this emergency John Quincy Adams turned his back on Massachusetts, and threw into the uprising scale of the administration, the weight of his talents and of his already eminent fame.  Massachusetts instructed the recusant to recant.  He refused to obey, and resigned his place.  His change of political relations astounded the country, and, with the customary charity of partisan zeal, was attributed to venality.  It is now seen by us in the light reflected upon it by the habitual independence, unquestioned purity, and lofty patriotism of his whole life; and thus seen, constitutes only the first marked one of many instances wherein he broke the green withes which party fastened upon him, and maintained the cause of his country, referring the care of his fame to God and to an impartial posterity.  Like Decimus Brutus, whom Julius Caesar saluted among his executioners with the exclamation “Et tu, Brute!” John Quincy Adams was not unfaithful, but he could not be obliged where he was not left free.

Jefferson retired in 1809, leaving to his successor, the scholastic and peace-loving Madison, the perilous legacy of perplexed foreign relations, and embittered domestic feuds.  Great Britain now filled the measure of exasperations, by insolently searching our vessels on the high seas, and impressing into her marine all whom she chose to suspect of having been born in her allegiance, even though they had renounced it and had assumed the relations of American citizens.  War was therefore imminent and inevitable.  Russia was then coming forward to a position of commanding influence in Europe, and her youthful Emperor Alexander had won, by his chivalrous bearing, the respect of mankind.  John Quincy Adams was wisely sent by the United States, to establish relations of amity with the great power of the North; and while he was thus engaged, the flames of European war, which had been so long averted, involved his own country.  War was declared against Great Britain.

It was just.  It was necessary.  Yet it was a war that dared Great Britain to re-assert her ancient sovereignty.  It was a war with a power whose wealth and credit were practically inexhaustible, a power whose navy rode unchecked over all the seas, and whose impregnable garrisons encircled the globe.

Against such a power the war was waged by a nation that had not yet accumulated wealth, nor established credit, nor even opened avenues suitable for transporting munitions of war through its extended territories—­that had only the germ of a navy, an inconsiderable army, and not one substantial fortress.  Yet such a war, under such circumstances, was denounced as unnecessary and unjust, though for no better reason than because greater contumelies had been endured at the hands of France.  Thus a domestic feud, based on the very question of the war itself, enervated the national strength, and encouraged the mighty adversary.