THE speeches of Mr. Seward in the senate during the second session of the thirty-second Congress were on questions of great practical interest. In his remarks in the debate on "Continental Rights and Relations," Jan. 26, 1852, he pays a graceful and feeling tribute to the character of John Quincy Adams, whom he claims as the author of the policy on recolonization generally ascribed to President Monroe. Passing to the discussion of the policy itself, he gives his reasons for holding to its substantial truth, while he protests against the manner in which it was brought in issue on that occasion. The speech is gravely and forcibly argued, though not without incidental touches of effective satire.*

We quote a few passages relating to John Quincy Adams and to Cuba:

"MR. PRESIDENT: On the 23d day of February, 1848, John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, who had completed a circle of public service filling fifty years, beginning with an inferior diplomatic function, passing through the chief magistracy, and closing with the trust of a representative in Congress, departed from the earth, certainly respected by mankind, and, if ‘all posthumous honors are not insincere and false, deplored by his countrymen.

"On a fair and cloudless day in the month of June, 1850, when the loud and deep voice of wailing had just died away in the land, the senator from Michigan, of New England born, and by New England reared-the leader of a great party, not only

*See Vol. III., p. 605.

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here, but in the whole country-rose in the senate-chamber, and after complaining that a member of the family of that great statesman of the east, instead of going backward with a garment to cover his infirmities, had revealed them by publishing portions of his private diary, himself proceeded to read the obnoxious extracts. They showed the author's strong opinions, that by the federal compact the slaveholding class had obtained, and they had exercised, a controlling influence in the government of the country. Placing these extracts by the side of passages taken from the Farewell Address of Washington, the senator from Michigan said: 'He is unworthy the name of an American who does not feel at his heart's core the difference between the lofty patriotism and noble sentiments of one of these documents, andbut I will not say what the occasion would justify. I will only say, and that is enough, the other, for it is another.' — 'It can not, nor will it, nor should it, escape the censure of an age like this.''Better that it had been entombed, like the ancient Egyptian records, till its language was lost, than thus to have been exposed to the light of day.'

"The senator then proceeded to set forth, by contrast, his own greater justice and generosity to the southern states, and his own higher fidelity to the Union. This was in the senate of the United States. And yet no one rose to vindicate the memory of John Quincy Adams, or to express an emotion even of surprise, or of regret, that it had been thought necessary thus to invade the sanctity of the honored grave where the illustrious statesman, who had so recently passed the gates of death, was sleeping. I was not of New England, by residence, education, or descent, and there were reasons enough why I should then endure in silence a pain that I shared with so many of my countrymen. But I determined that, when the tempest of popular passion that was then raging in the country should have passed by, I would claim a hearing here-not to defend or vindicate the sentiments which the senator from Michigan had thus severely censured, for Mr. Adams himself had referred them, together with all his actions and opinions concerning slaverynot to this tribunal, or even to the present time, but to that afterage which gathers and records the impartial and ultimate judgment of mankind—but to show how just and generous he had

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been in his public career toward all the members of this confederacy, and how devoted to the union of the states, and to the aggrandizement of this republic. I am thankful that the necessity for performing that duty has passed by, and that the statesman of Quincy has, earlier than I hoped, received his vindication, and has received it, too, at the hands of him from whom it was justly due—the accuser himself. I regret only this—that the vindication was not as generously as it was effectually made. There are two propositions arising out of our interests in and around the gulf of Mexico, which are admitted by all our statesmen. One of them is, that the safety of the southern states requires a watchful jealousy of the presence of European powers in the southern portions of the North-American continent; and the other is, that the tendency of commercial and political events invites the United States to assume and exercise a paramount influence in the affairs of the nations situated in this hemisphere; that is, to become and remain a great western continental power, balancing itself against the possible combinations of Europe. The advance of the country toward that position constitutes what, in the language of many, is called 'progress;' and the position itself is what, by the same class, is called manifest destiny.' It is held by all who approve that progress, and expect that destiny, to be necessary to prevent the recolonization of this continent by the European states, and to save the island of Cuba from passing out of the possession of decayed Spain, into that of any of the more vigorous maritime powers of the old world.

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In December, 1823, James Monroe, president of the United States, in his annual message to Congress, proclaimed the first of these two policies substantially as follows: The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power; and while existing rights should be respected, the safety and interest of the United States require them to announce that no future colony or dominion shall, with their consent, be planted or established in any part of the North American continent.' This is what is called, here and elsewhere, the Monroe doctrine, so far as it involves recolonization.

"John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun were then members, chief members, of Monroe's administration. John Quincy Adams afterward acknowledged that he was the author of that doctrine or policy; and John C. Calhoun, on the 15th of May, 1848, in the senate, testified on that point fully. A senator had related an alleged conversation, in which Mr. Adams was represented as having said that three memorable propositions contained in that message, of which what I have quoted was one, had originated with himself. Mr. Calhoun replied, that Mr. Adams, if he had so stated, must have referred to only the one proposition concerning re-colonization [the one now in question]' and then added as follows: As respects that, his [Mr. Adams's] memory does not differ from mine. It originated entirely with

Mr. Adams.'*

"Thus much for the origin of the Monroe doctrine on recolonization. Now, let us turn to the position of John Quincy Adams, concerning national jealousy of the designs of European powers upon the island of Cuba. The recent revelations of our diplomacy on that subject begin with the period when that statesman presided in the department of state. On the 17th of December, 1822, Mr. Adams informed Mr. Forsyth, then American minister in Spain, that the island of Cuba had excited much attention, and had become of deep interest to the American Union;' and, referring to reported rival designs of France and Great Britain upon that island, instructed him to make known to Spain 'the sentiments of the United States, which were favorable to the continuance of Cuba in its connection with Spain.' On the 28th of April, 1823, Mr. Adams thus instructed Mr. Nelson, the successor of Mr. Forsyth :—

“‘The islands of Cuba and Porto-Rico still remain, nominally, and so far really dependent upon Spain, that she yet possesses the power of transferring her own dominion over them to others. These islands, from their local position, are natural appendages to the North American continent; and one of them, Cuba, almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of considerations, has become an object of transcendant importance to the commercial and political interests of our Union. Its commanding position, with reference to the gulf of Mexico and the West India seas; the character of its population; its situation midway between our southern coast and the island of St. Domingo; its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, fronting a * App. Cong. Globe, 1847-'48, p. 631.

long line of our shores destitute of the same advantage; the nature of its productions and of its wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the returns of a commerce immensely profitable and mutually beneficial-give it an importance in the sum of our national interests with which that of no other foreign territory can be compared, and little inferior to that which binds the different members of this Union together. Such, indeed, are, between the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, and political relations, formed by nature, gathering in the process of time, and even now verging to maturity, that, in looking forward to the probable course of events, for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself. It is obvious, however, that for this event we are not yet prepared. Numerous and formidable objections to the extension of our territorial dominions beyond sea, present themselves to the first contemplation of the subject; obstacles to the system of policy by which alone that result can be compassed and maintained, are to be foreseen and surmounted, both from at home and abroad; but there are laws of political as well as of physical gravitation; and if an apple, severed by the tempest from its native tree, can not choose but fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only toward the North American union, which, by the same law of nature, can not cast her off from its bosom.

"It will be among the primary objects requiring your most earnest and unremitting attention, to ascertain and report to us every movement of negotiation between Spain and Great Britain upon this subject. . . . . . So long as the constitutional government may continue to be administered in the name of the king, your official intercourse will be with his ministers, and to them you will repeat, what Mr. Forsyth has been instructed to say, that the wishes of your government are that Cuba and Porto-Rico may continue in connection with independent and constitutional Spain.'

"Thirty years afterward, viz.: on the 4th day of January, 1853, the senator from Michigan (Mr. Cass) without one word of acknowledgment of Mr. Adams's agency in instituting those measures of 'progress' toward the 'manifest destiny' of the country, submitted the resolutions which are under consideration, and which are in these words:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States do hereby declare, that "the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power;" and while "existing rights should be respected," and will be by the United States, they owe it to their own "safety and interests" to announce, as they now do, "that no future European colony or dominion shall, with their con