political manager then in public
life. Long prior to this stage Adams had established his rule of
conduct in the campaign. So early as March, 1818, he was asked one day
by Mr. Everett whether he was "determined to do nothing with a view to
promote his future election to the Presidency as the successor of Mr.
Monroe," and he had replied that he "should do absolutely nothing." To
this resolution he sturdily adhered. Not a breach of it was ever
brought home to him, or indeed--save in one instance soon to be
noticed--seriously charged against him. There is not in the Diary the
faintest trace of any act which might be so much as questionable or
susceptible of defence only by casuistry. That he should have
perpetuated evidence of any flagrant misdoing certainly could not be
expected; but in a record kept with the fulness and frankness of this
Diary we should read between the lines and detect as it were in its
general flavor any taint of disingenuousness or concealment; we should
discern moral unwholesomeness in its atmosphere. A thoughtless
sentence would slip from the pen, a sophistical argument would be (p. 165)
formulated for self-comfort, some acquaintance, interview, or
arrangement would slide upon some unguarded page indicative of
undisclosed matters. But there is absolutely nothing of this sort.
There is no tinge of bad color; all is clear as crystal. Not an
editor, nor a member of Congress, nor a local politician, not even a
private individual, was intimidated or conciliated. On the contrary it
often happened that those who made advances, at least sometimes
stimulated by honest friendship, got rebuffs instead of encouragement.
Even after the contest was known to have been transferred to the House
of Representatives, when Washington was actually buzzing with the
ceaseless whisperings of many secret conclaves, when the air was thick
with rumors of what this one had said and that one had done, when, as
Webster said, there were those who pretended to foretell how a
representative would vote from the way in which he put on his hat,
when of course stories of intrigue and corruption poisoned the honest
breeze, and when the streets seemed traversed only by the busy tread
of the go-betweens, the influential friends, the wire-pullers of the
various contestants,--still amid all this noisy excitement and extreme
temptation Mr. Adams held himself almost wholly aloof, wrapped in the
cloak of his rigid integrity. His proud honesty w