During this earlier period John Quincy Adams had been a Federalist by conviction as well as by education. Nor was there any obvious reason for him to change his political faith with the change of party success, brought about as that was before its necessity was apparent but by the sure and inscrutable wisdom so marvellously enclosed in the great popular instinct. It was not patent, when Mr. Jefferson succeeded Mr. Adams, that Federalism was soon to become an unsound political creed--unsound, not because it had been defeated, but because it had done its work, and in the new emergency was destined to blunder. During Mr. Jefferson's first administration no questions of novel import arose. But they were not far distant, and soon were presented by the British aggressions. A grave crisis was created by this system of organized destruction of property and wholesale stealing of citizens, now suddenly practised with such terrible energy. What was to be done? What had the two great parties to advise concerning the policy of the country in this hour of peril? Unfortunately for the Federalists old predilections were allowed (p. 062) now to govern their present action. Excusably Anglican in the bygone days of Genet's mission, they now remained still Anglican, when to be Anglican was to be emphatically un-American. As one reads the history of 1807 and 1808 it is impossible not to feel almost a sense of personal gratitude to John Quincy Adams that he dared to step out from his meek-spirited party and do all that circumstances rendered possible to promote resistance to insults and wrongs intolerable. In truth, he was always a man of high temper, and eminently a patriotic citizen of the United States. Unlike too many even of the best among his countrymen in those early years of the Republic, he had no foreign sympathies whatsoever; he was neither French nor English, but wholly, exclusively, and warmly American. He had no second love; the United States filled his public heart and monopolized his political affections. When he was abroad he established neither affiliations nor antipathies, and when he was at home he drifted with no party whose course was governed by foreign magnets. It needs only that this characteristic should be fully understood in order that his conduct in 1808 should be not alone vindicated but greatly admired.