justify the refusal to adopt this policy only by the steadiness and consistency of my adhesion to my own. If I depart from this in one instance, I shall be called upon by my friends to do the same thing in many. An insidious and inquisitorial scrutiny into the personal dispositions of public officers will creep through the whole Union, and the most selfish and sordid passions will be kindled into activity to distort the conduct and misrepresent the feelings of men whose places may become the prize of slander upon them.” This was the President's answer to Clay's suggestions, and, as the Diary tells us, “Mr. Clay did not press the subject any farther.” It would have been useless.
What moved Adams, in laying down this rule of action, was not faint-heartedness. He was one of the most courageous of men; he never shrank from a responsibility. He even enjoyed a conflict when he found one necessary to enforce his sense of right. Here he made his stand for the principles upon which the government in its early days had been conducted, and his decision in the Sterret case became the rule by which his administration was governed from beginning to end. He made only two removals during the four years, and these were for bad official conduct. With unbending firmness he resisted every attempt to make him dismiss officers who intrigued against his reëlection, or openly embraced the cause of his opponents. The reappointment of worthy officers upon the expiration of their terms, without regard to politics, was a matter of course.
