One important limitation, however, belongs to this statement of solitariness. It was confined to his position in Congress. Outside of the city of Washington great numbers of the people, especially in New England, lent him a hearty support and regarded him with friendship and admiration. These men had strong convictions and deep feelings, and their adherence counted for much. Moreover, their numbers steadily increased, and Mr. Adams saw that he was the leader in a cause which engaged the sound sense and the best feeling of the intelligent people of the country, and which was steadily gaining ground. Without such encouragement it is doubtful whether even his persistence would have held out through so long and extreme a trial. The sense of human fellowship was needful to him; he could go without it in Congress, but he could not have gone without it altogether.
Mr. Adams took his seat in the House as a member of the twenty-second Congress in December, 1831. He had been elected by the National Republican, afterward better known as the Whig party, but one of (p. 233) his first acts was to declare that he would be bound by no partisan connection, but would in every matter act independently. This course he regarded as a "duty imposed upon him by his peculiar position," in that he "had spent the greatest portion of his life in the service of the whole nation and had been honored with their highest trust." Many persons had predicted that he would find himself subjected to embarrassments and perhaps to humiliations by reason of his apparent descent in the scale of political dignities. He notes, however, that he encountered no annoyance on this score, but on the contrary he was rather treated with an especial respect. He was made chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, a laborious as well as an important and honorable position at all times, and especially so at this juncture when the rebellious mutterings of South Carolina against the protective tariff were already to be heard rolling and swelling like portentous thunder from the fiery Southern regions. He would have preferred to exchange this post for a place upon the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for whose business he felt more fitted. But he was told that in the impending crisis his ability, authority, and prestige were all likely to be needed in the place allotted to him to aid in the salvation of the country.