The army bred courage. Young men of the volunteer
type were not always docile under control, but they were handy in
a fight. Adams was greatly pleased to be admitted as one of them.
He found himself much at home with them -- more at home than he
ever had been before, or was ever to be again -- in the
atmosphere of the Treasury. He had no strong party passion, and
he felt as though he and his friends owned this administration,
which, in its dying days, had neither friends nor future except
in them.
These were not the only allies; the whole government in all its
branches was alive with them. Just at that moment the Supreme
Court was about to take up the Legal Tender cases where Judge
Curtis had been employed to argue against the constitutional
power of the Government to make an artificial standard of value
in time of peace. Evarts was anxious to fix on a line of argument
that should have a chance of standing up against that of Judge
Curtis, and was puzzled to do it. He did not know which foot to
put forward. About to deal with Judge Curtis, the last of the
strong jurists of Marshall's school, he could risk no chances. In
doubt, the quickest way to clear one's mind is to discuss, and
Evarts deliberately forced discussion. Day after day, driving,
dining, walking he provoked Adams to dispute his positions. He
needed an anvil, he said, to hammer his ideas on.
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