e contemptuous, as time went on.

Fifteen months later General Jackson made his visit to Boston, and it
was proposed that Harvard College should confer upon him the degree of
Doctor of Laws. The absurdity of the act, considered simply in itself,
was admitted by all. But the argument in its favor was based upon the
established usage of the College as towards all other Presidents, so
that its omission in this case might seem a personal slight. Mr. Adams,
being at the time a member of the Board of Overseers, strongly opposed
the proposition, but of course in vain. All that he could do was, for
his own individual part, to refuse to be present at the conferring of
the degree, giving as the minor reason for his absence, that he could
hold no friendly intercourse with the President, but for the major
reason that "independent of that, as myself an affectionate child of
our Alma Mater, I would not be present to witness her disgrace in
conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not
write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name." "A
Doctorate of Laws," he said, "for which an apology was necessary, was
a cheap honor and ... a sycophantic compliment." After the deed (p. 242)
was done, he used to amuse himself by speaking of "Doctor Andrew
Jackson." This same eastern tour of Jackson's called forth many other
expressions of bitter sarcasm from Adams. The President was ill and
unable to carry out the programme of entertainment and exhibition
prepared for him: whereupon Mr. Adams remarks:--

"I believe much of his debility is politic.... He is one of our
tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity, like John
Randolph, who for forty years was always dying. Jackson, ever
since he became a mark of public attention, has been doing the
same thing.... He is now alternately giving out his chronic
diarrhoea and making Warren bleed him for a pleurisy, and
posting to Cambridge for a doctorate of laws; mounting the
monument of Bunker's Hill to hear a fulsome address and receive
two cannon balls from Edward Everett," etc. "Four fifths of his
sickness is trickery, and the other fifth mere fatigue."

This sounds, it must be confessed, a trifle rancorous; but Adams had
great excuse for nourishing rancor towards Jackson.

It is time, however, to return to the House of Representatives. It was
not by bearing his share in the ordinary work of that body, i