hotographic accuracy. But one does not see a much
higher level of faithfulness to ideal standards in political life than
now exists.

[Illustration: Wm. H. Crawford.]

As has been said, it so happened that in Mr. Monroe's (p. 108)
administration the heaviest burden of labor and responsibility rested
upon Mr. Adams; the most important and most perplexing questions fell
within his department. Domestic breaches had been healed, but foreign
breaches gaped with threatening jaws. War with Spain seemed imminent.
Her South American colonies were then waging their contest for
independence, and naturally looked to the late successful rebels of
the northern continent for acts of neighborly sympathy and good
fellowship. Their efforts to obtain official recognition and the
exchange of ministers with the United States were eager and persistent.
Privateers fitted out at Baltimore gave the State Department scarcely
less cause for anxiety than the shipbuilders of Liverpool gave to the
English Cabinet in 1863-64. These perplexities, as is well known,
caused the passage of the first "Neutrality Act," which first
formulated and has since served to establish the principle of
international obligation in such matters, and has been the basis of
all subsequent legislation upon the subject not only in this country
but also in Great Britain.

The European powers, impelled by a natural distaste for rebellion by
colonists, and also believing that Spain would in time prevail over
the insurgents, turned a deaf ear to South American agents. But in the
United States it was different. Here it was anticipated that the (p. 109)
revolted communities were destined to win; Mr. Adams records this as
his own opinion; besides which there was also a natural sympathy felt
by our people in such a conflict in their own quarter of the globe.
Nevertheless, in many anxious cabinet discussions, the President and
the Secretary of State established the policy of reserve and caution.
Rebels against an established government are like plaintiffs in
litigation; the burden of proof is upon them, and the neutral nations
who are a sort of quasi-jurors must not commit themselves to a
decision prematurely. The grave and inevitable difficulties besetting
the administration in this matter were seriously enhanced by the
conduct of Mr. Clay. Seeking nothing so eagerly as an opportunity to
harass the government, he could have found none more to his taste than
this q