Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/126

106 ADAMS though it did not prevent his appearance the next day in his seat, he suffered permanently from it. On Nov. 26, 1846, just as he was about to leave Boston for Washington, he expe- rienced a shock of paralysis which kept him from his seat for the next four months. After this he attended congress regularly, but seldom spoke. On Feb. 21, 1848, he had a second at- tack while occupying his seat in the house. He was taken to the speaker's private room, where he remained in a state seemingly of uncon- sciousness, though with occasional incoherent utterances, till the 23d, when he expired. His last words are said to have been, " This is the last of earth ; I am content." In addition to his voluminous speeches in congress, many of which were written out by himself, on various subjects, a great number of his ac- knowledged publications appeared in his life- time, lie left behind him a very voluminous diary, extending from his early youth to his death, one or two valuable fragments from which have already appeared. His journal, which is in the hands of his son, is regarded as a great political treasure. He wrote with great fluency, his manuscript seldom presenting an erasure, but he lacked altogether that idiomatic elegance, force, and simplicity so conspicuous in his father, instead of which his 'style is swell- ing, verbose, inflated, and rhetorical. He lack- ed also, though not without powers of sar- casm, the wit and fancy which sparkled in his father's writings, and still more that spirit of philosophical generalization into which John Adams constantly fell, but which was totally foreign to the intellectual constitution and hab- its of the son. John Quincy Adams had more learning perhaps, but John Adams had much more genius. In energy, spirit, firmness, and indomitable courage, John Q. Adams was his father's equal ; in self-command, in political prudence, and even perhaps in capacity for hard work, his superior. Both will live for ever as representatives and embodiments of the spirit and ideas of New England during the periods in which they figured. In some re- spects John Q. Adams was far more fortu- nate than his father. The brilliant period of his career was toward its close. The longer he lived the higher he rose, and he died as such men prefer to die, still an admired and trust- ed champion, with harness on his back and spear in hand. Yet his whole political career, taken together, hardly presents to the close ob- server a character so uniformly brilliant and unspotted, and so free from the taint of selfish- ness, as that of his father. In personal .appear- ance, and in general temperament and charac- ter, the resemblance between the father and the son was close. Both had very strong feel- ings and warm prejudices, though of the two John Quincy appears to have been the less ve- hement by nature, and also the better under control. Like his father, he was an economical housekeeper and judicious financier, and he died in possession of a handsome estate. See "Life and Public Services of J. Q. Adams," by William H. Seward (12mo, Auburn. 1849), and "Life of J. Q. Adams," by Josiah Quincv (Boston, 1858). I H UK Vlinniuh, D. D., an American clergy- man, born in, Salem, Mass., Feb. 19, 1806. He graduated at Harvard college in 1826, studied divinity at Andover, settled as colleague pastor with the Rev. Dr. Holmes over the first Con- gregational church in .Cambridge, Dec. 17, 1829, resigned March 17, 1834, and was in- stalled over the Essex street church in Boston, March 26, 1834. He took an active part in the controversy with the Unitarians, and pub- lished several works of a polemic and devo- tional character. The principal of these are : "Remarks on the Unitarian Belief," "The Friends of Christ in the New Testament" (Boston, 1853), and " Life of John Eliot." He was also a frequent contributor to the "Spirit of the Pilgrims," a religious periodical (Bos- ton, 1826-'33), devoted to the defence of the puritan faith against the encroachments of modern liberalism. He has also published " Christ a Friend," " Agnes and the Key of her Little Coffin," "Bertha and her Baptism, or the Early Saved," works of religious consola- tion for the afflicted. In 1853 Dr. Adams spent a winter, for the benefit of his health, in Savannah, Georgia, on the plantation of a wealthy slaveholder; and on his return he wrote " A South Side View of Slavery " (1854), in which he gave a highly favorable description of the institution, and especially of its influence on the religious character of the slave. He also published a correspondence on the same subject with Governor Wise of Virginia. After 35 years of pastoral labor with the Essex street church, in 1869, in consequence of failing health, he resigned his pastorate. His people refused to accept his resignation, but procured an associate minister, and gave him a long leave of absence, which he employed in making a voyage round the world, spending much time in the Sandwich Islands. He returned in 1871 with improved health. ADAMS, Samuel, a leading actor in the Ameri- can revolution, born in Boston, Sept. 27, 1722, died Oct. 2, 1803. His grandfather was a grandson of Henry Adams, the same emigrant from England to Massachusetts from whom John Adams, second president of the United States, traced his descent. These two illus- trious cooperators in the American revolution had both the same great-grandfather, a son of Henry Adams. He was prepared for college at the Boston Latin school, then taught by the elder Lovell, and entered at Cambridge in 1736. Previous to the revolution the names of the graduates of Harvard college are arranged in the college catalogue, not alphabetically, but in an order of precedence according to the es- timated rank of their families. In a class of 24, John Adams held the 14th place; Sam- uel Adams, in a class of 22, the 5th. The Boston branch of the Adams family would seem