Note (back) — Chapter II · (continued 2)

It was not alone by what he did and by what he would not do that Mr. Adams toiled to insure the election of General Jackson far more sedulously and efficiently than did the General himself or any of his partisans. In most cases it was probably the manner quite as much as the act which made Mr. Adams unpopular. In his anxiety to be upright he was undoubtedly prone to be needlessly disagreeable. His uncompromising temper put on an ungracious aspect. His conscientiousness wore the appearance of offensiveness. The Puritanism in his character was strongly tinged with that old New England notion that whatever is disagreeable is probably right, and that a painful refusal would lose half its merit in being expressed courteously; that a right action should never be done in a pleasing way; not only that no pill should be sugar-coated, but that the bitterest ingredient should be placed on the outside. In repudiating attractive vices the Puritans had rejected also those amenities which might have decently concealed or even mildly decorated the forbidding angularities of a naked Virtue which certainly did not imitate the form of any goddess who had ever before attracted followers. Mr. Adams was a complete and thorough Puritan, wonderfully little modified by times and circumstances. The ordinary arts of propitiation would have appeared to him only a feeble and diluted form of dishonesty; while suavity and graciousness of demeanor would have seemed as unbecoming to this rigid official as love-making or wine-bibbing seem to a strait-laced parson. It was inevitable, therefore, that he should never avert by his words any ill-will naturally caused by his acts; that he should never soothe disappointment, or attract calculating selfishness. He was an adept in alienation, a novice in conciliation. His magnetism was negative. He made few friends; and had no interested following whatsoever. No one was enthusiastic on his behalf; no band worked for him with the ardor of personal devotion. His party was composed of those who had sufficient intelligence to appreciate his integrity and sufficient honesty to admire it. These persons respected him, and when election day came they would vote for him; but they did not canvass zealously in his behalf, nor do such service for him as a very different kind of feeling induced the Jackson men to do for their candidate.[7] The fervid laborers in politics left Mr. Adams alone in his chilling respectability, and went over to a camp where all scruples were consumed in the glowing heat of a campaign conducted upon the single and simple principle of securing victory.