ery different line. It was replied,
that he could not be excused without a vote of the House; that the
continuance of the Union might depend on the questions relative to the
tariff; and that it was thought his influence would have great weight in
reconciling the Eastern States to such modifications as he might
sanction. He therefore yielded all personal considerations to the
interests of his country, and accepted the appointment.

In the ensuing March, on being appointed on a committee to investigate
the affairs of the United States Bank, Mr. Adams requested of the House
to be excused from service on the Committee on Manufactures, giving the
same reasons he had previously urged, and others resulting from the
incompatibility of the two offices. An opposition was made by
Cambreling, of New York, Barbour, of Virginia, and Drayton, of South
Carolina, in speeches which were characterized by the newspapers of the
times as "most extraordinary."[14] Cambreling said: "The present
condition of the country and of the public mind demanded the
intelligence, industry, and patriotism, for which Mr. Adams was
distinguished. The authority of his name was of infinite importance."
Mr. Barbour followed in a like strain. "The member from Massachusetts,"
said he, "with whom I have been associated in the Committee on
Manufactures, has not only fulfilled all his duties with eminent
ability, in the committee, but in a spirit and temper that demanded
grateful acknowledgments, and excited the highest admiration." He
concluded with an appeal to Mr. Adams, "as a patriot, a statesman, and
philanthropist, as well as an American, feeling the full force of his
duties, and touched by all their incentives to lofty action, to forbear
his request." Mr. Drayton also, in a voice of eulogy, declared that,
"Amidst all the rancor of political parties with which our country has
been distracted, and from which, unhappily, we are not now exempt, it
has always been admitted that no individual was more eminently endowed
with those intellectual and moral qualities which entitle their
possessor to the respect of the community, and to entire confidence in
the purity of his motives, than Mr. Adams."

[14] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XLII., pp. 86-88.

These politicians were the active and influential members of a party
which had raised General Jackson to the President's chair. When laboring
to displace Mr. Adams from that high station, that party had represen