In America, politics more than elsewhere demand greatness, for ours is, in theory, the government of all, for all, and by all. It requires greater range of thought to discover the law for all than for a few; after the discovery thereof it is more difficult to construct a democracy than a monarchy, or an aristocracy, and after that is organized, it is more difficult to administer. It requires more manhood to wield at will "the fierce democratic" of America than to rule England or France; yet the American institutions are germane to human nature, and by that fact are rendered more easy, complicated as they are.
In politics, when the institutions are established, men often think there is no room for discoverers and organizers; that administrators alone are needed, and choose accordingly. But there are ideas well known, not yet organized into institutions: that of free -trade, of peace, of universal freedom, universal education, universal comfort, in a word, the idea of human brotherhood. These wait to be constructed into a State without injustice, without war, without slavery, ignorance, or want. It is hardly true that Infinity is dry of truths, unseen as yet; there are truths enough waiting to be discovered; all the space betwixt us and God is full of ideas, waiting for some Columbus to disclose new worlds. Men are always saying there is no new thing under the sun, but when the discoverer comes, they see their mistake. We want the new eye.
Now, it is quite plain where we are to place the distinguished person of whom I speak. Mr. Adams was not a discoverer; not an organizer. He added no truth to mankind, not known before, and even well known; he made no known truth a fact. He was an administrator of political institutions. Taking the whole land into consideration, comparing him with his competitors, measuring him by his apparent works, at first sight he does not seem very highly eminent in this class of political administrators. Nay, some would set him down, not an administrator so much as a political critic. Here there is danger of doing him injustice, by neglecting a fact so obvious, that it is seldom seen. Mr. Adams was a northern man, with northern habits, methods, and opinions. By the North, I mean the free States.
