On a certain occasion, Mr. Adams was asked, “What are the recognized principles of politics?” He replied, that there were no principles in politics—­there were recognized precepts, but they were bad ones.  But, continued the inquirer, is not this a good one—­“To seek the greatest good of the greatest number?” No, said he, that is the worst of all, for it looks specious, while it is ruinous.  What shall become of the minority, in that case?  This is the only principle to seek—­“the greatest good of all.” [Footnote:  Massachusetts Quarterly, June, 1849.]

A few months after Mr. Adams’ entrance into the Senate of the United States, a law was passed by Congress, at the suggestion of Mr. Jefferson, authorizing the purchase of Louisiana.  Mr. Adams deemed this measure an encroachment on the Constitution of the United States, and opposed it on the ground of its unconstitutionality.  He was one of six senators who voted against it.  Yet when the measure had been legally consummated, he yielded it his support.  In passing laws for the government of the territory thus obtained, the right of trial by jury was granted only in capital cases.  Mr. Adams labored to have it extended to all criminal offences.  Before the territory had a representative in Congress, the government proposed to levy a tax on the people for purposes of revenue.  This attempt met the decided opposition of Mr. Adams.  He insisted it would be an exercise of government, without the consent of the governed, which, to all intents, is a despotism.

In 1805, he labored to have Congress pass a law levying a duty on the importation of slaves.  This was the first public indication of his views on the subject of slavery.  It was a premonition of the bold, unflinching, noble warfare against that institution, and of the advocacy of human freedom and human rights in the widest sense, which characterized the closing scenes of his remarkable career, and which will perpetuate his fame, when other acts of his life shall have passed from the remembrance of men.  Although at that early day but little was said in regard to slavery, yet the young senator saw it was fraught with danger to the Union—­conferring political power and influence on slaveholders, on principles false and pernicious, and calculated ultimately to distract the harmony of the country, and endanger the permanency of our free institutions.  He labored, therefore, to check the increase of slave power, by the only means which, probably, appeared feasible at that time.

But a crisis in his senatorial career at length arrived.  The commerce of the United States had suffered greatly by “Orders in Council,” and “Milan Decrees.”  Our ships were seized, conducted into foreign ports and confiscated, with their cargoes.  American seamen were impressed by British cruisers, and compelled to serve in a foreign navy.  The American frigate Philadelphia, while near the coast of the United States, on refusing to give up four