presiding over the Buffalo Convention which formed the Free Soil party and nominated Martin Van Buren for president and himself for vice-president. He was a Republican member of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, which assembled on the 5th of December 1859, and during the second session, from the 3rd of December 1860 to the 4th of March 1861, he represented Massachusetts in the Congressional Committee of Thirty-three at the time of the secession of seven of the Southern states. His selection by the chairman of this committee, Thomas Corwin, to present to the full committee certain propositions agreed upon by two-thirds of the Republican members, and his calm and able speech of the 31st of January 1861 in the House, served to make him conspicuous before congress and the country. Together with William H. Seward, he stood for the Republican policy of concession; and, while he was criticized severely and charged with inconsistency in view of his record as a “Conscience Whig,” he was of the same mind as President Lincoln, willing to concede non-essentials, but holding rigidly to the principle, properly understood, that there must be no extension of slavery. He believed that as the Republicans were the victors they ought to show a spirit of conciliation, and that the policy of righteousness was likewise one of expediency, since it would have for its result the holding of the border slave states with the North until the 4th of March, when the Republicans could take possession of the government at Washington. With the incoming of the new administration Secretary Seward secured for Adams the appointment of minister to Great Britain. So much sympathy was shown in England for the South that his path was beset with difficulties; but his mission was to prevent the interference of Great Britain in the struggle; and while the work of Lincoln, Seward and Sumner, and the cause of emancipation, tended to this end, the American minister was insistent and unyielding, and knew how to present his case forcibly and with dignity. He laboured with energy and discretion to prevent the sailing of the “Alabama”; and, when unsuccessful in this, he persistently urged upon the British government its responsibility for the destruction of American merchant vessels by the privateer. In his own diary he shows that underneath his calm exterior were serious trouble and keen anxiety; and, in fact, the strain which he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell to stop the “Alexandra,” and it was his industry and pertinacity in argument and remonstrance that induced Russell to order the detention in September 1863 of the two ironclad rams intended for the Confederate States. Adams remained in England until May 1868. His last important work was as a member, in 1871–1872, of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva which disposed of the “Alabama” claims. His knowledge of the subject and his fairness of mind enabled him to render his country and the cause of international arbitration valuable service. He died at Boston on the 21st of November 1886.
He edited the works of John Adams (10 vols., 1850–1856), and the Memoirs of John Quincy Adams (12 vols., 1874–1877). See the excellent biography (Boston, 1900), in the “American Statesmen Series,” by his son, Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (J. F. R.)
ADAMS, HENRY (1838–), American historian, son of Charles Francis Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 16th of February 1838. He graduated at Harvard in 1858, and from 1861 to 1868 was private secretary to his father. From 1870 to 1877 he was assistant professor of history at Harvard and from 1870 to 1876 was editor of the North American Review. He is considered to have been the first (in 1874–1876) to conduct historical seminary work in the United States. His great work is his History of the United States (1801 to 1817) (9 vols., 1889–1891), which is incomparably the best work yet published dealing with the administrations of Presidents Jefferson and Madison. It is particularly notable for its account of the diplomatic relations of the United States during this period, and for its essential impartiality. Adams also published: Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), John Randolph (1882) in the “American Statesmen Series,” and Historical Essays (1891); besides editing Documents Relating to New England Federalism (1877), and the Writings of Albert Gallatin (3 volumes, 1879). In collaboration with his elder brother Charles Francis Adams, Jr., he published Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871), and, with H. C. Lodge, Ernest Young and J. L. Laughlin, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law (1876).
His elder brother, John Quincy Adams (1833–1894), a graduate of Harvard (1853), practised law, and was a Democratic member for several terms of the Massachusetts general court. In 1872 he was nominated for vice-president by the Democratic faction that refused to support Horace Greeley.
Another brother, Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835–), born in Boston on the 27th of May 1835, graduated at Harvard in 1856, and served on the Union side in the Civil War, receiving in 1865 the brevet of brigadier-general in the regular army. He was president of the Union Pacific railroad from 1884 to 1890, having previously become widely known as an authority on the management of railways. In 1900–1901 he was president of the American Historical Association. Among his writings are: Railroads, Their Origin and Problems (1878); Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (1892); a biography of his father, Charles Francis Adams (1900); Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers (1902); Theodore Lyman and Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr., Two Memoirs (1906); and Three Phi Beta Kappa Addresses (1907).
Another brother, Brooks Adams (1848–), born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the 24th of June 1848, graduated at Harvard in 1870, and until 1881 practised law. His writings include: The Emancipation of Massachusetts (1887); The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895); America’s Economic Supremacy (1900); and The New Empire (1902).
ADAMS, HENRY CARTER (1852–), American economist, was born at Davenport, Iowa, on the 31st of December 1852. He was educated at Iowa College and Johns Hopkins University, of which latter he was fellow and lecturer (1880–1882). He was afterwards a lecturer in Cornell University, and in 1887 became professor of political economy and finance in the university of Michigan. He also became statistician to the Interstate Commerce Committee and was in charge of the transportation department in the 1900 census. His principal works are The State in Relation to Industrial Action (1887); Taxation in the United States, 1787 to 1816 (1884); Public Debts (1887); The Science of Finance (1888); Economics and Jurisprudence (1897).
ADAMS, HERBERT (1858–), American sculptor, was born at West Concord, Vermont, on the 28th of January 1858. He was educated at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Institute of Technology, and at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and in 1885–1890 he was a pupil of Antonin Mercié in Paris. In 1890–1898 he was an instructor in the art school of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. In 1906 he was elected vice-president of the National Academy of Design, New York. He experimented successfully with some polychrome busts and tinted marbles, notably in the “Rabbi’s Daughter” and a portrait of Miss Julia Marlowe, the actress; and he is at his best in his portrait busts of women, the best example being the study, completed in 1887, of Miss A. V. Pond, whom he afterwards married. Among his other productions are a fountain for Fitchburg, Massachusetts (1888); a number of works for the Congressional Library, Washington, including the bronze doors (“Writing”) begun by Olin Warner, and the statue of Professor Joseph Henry; memorial tablets for the Boston State House; a memorial to Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, Mass.; statues of Richard Smith, the type-founder, in Philadelphia, and of William Ellery Channing, in Boston (1902); and the Vanderbilt memorial bronze doors for St Bartholomew’s Church, New York.
ADAMS, HERBERT BAXTER (1850–1901), American historian and educationalist, was born at Shutesbury (near Amherst), Massachusetts, on the 16th of April 1850. He graduated at Amherst, at the head of his class, in 1872; and between 1873 and 1876 he studied political science, history and economics at Göttingen, Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany, receiving the degree of Ph.D. at Heidelberg in 1876, with the highest
