2o6 C. F. Adams son was undeniably a prophet, voicing the gospel as he saw it fear- lessly and without pause. As such he contributed potently to the final result. Next, Webster. It was the mission of Daniel Webster to preach nationality. In doing so he spoke in words of massive eloquence in direct harmony with the most pronounced aspiration of his time, — that aspiration which has asserted itself and worked the most manifest results of the nineteenth century in both hemispheres, — in Spain and Prussia during the Napoleonic war, in Russia during the long Sclavonic upheaval, again more recently in Germany and in Italy, and finally in the United States. The names of Stein, of Cavour and of Bismarck are scarcely more associated with this great instinctive movement of the century than is that of Daniel Webster. His mission it was to preach to this people Union, one and indivisible ; and he delivered his message. The mission of J. Q. Adams during his best and latest years, while a combination of that of the two others, was different from either. His message, carefully thought out, long retained, and at last distinctly enunciated, was his answer to the Jeffersonian theory of state sovereignty, and Calhoun's doctrine of nullification and its logical outcome, secession. With both theory and doctrine, and their results, he had during his long political career been con- fronted ; on both he had reflected much. It was during the admin- istration of Jefferson and on the question of union that he had, in 1807, broken with his party and resigned from the Senate; and with Calhoun he had been closely associated in the cabinet of Mon- roe. Calhoun also had occupied the vice-presidential chair during his own administration. He now met Calhoun face to face on the slavery issue, prophetically proclaiming a remedy for the moral wrong and the vindication of the rights of man, within the Union and under the Constitution, through the exercise of inherent war powers whenever an issue between the sections should assume the insur- rectionary shape. In other words. Garrison's moral result was to be secured, not through the agencies Garrison advocated, but by force of that nationality which Webster proclaimed. This solution of the issue, J. Q. Adams never wearied of enunciating, early and late, by act, speech and letter ; and his view prevailed in the end. Lincoln's proclamation of January, 1863, was but the formal decla- ration of the policy enunciated by J. Q. Adams on the floor of Congress in 1836, and again in 1841, and yet again in greater de- tail in 1842.' It was he who thus brought the abstract moral doc- trines of Garrison into unison of movement with the nationality of Webster. ' See Appendix, post.
