At first, the simple beginner, struggling with principles,
wanted throw off responsibility on the American people, whose
bare and toiling shoulders had to carry the load of every social
or political stupidity; but the American people had no more to do
with it than with the customs of Peking. American character might
perhaps account for it, but what accounted for American
character? All Boston, all New England, and all respectable New
York, including Charles Francis Adams the father and Charles
Francis Adams the son, agreed that Washington was no place for a
respectable young man. All Washington, including Presidents,
Cabinet officers, Judiciary, Senators, Congressmen, and clerks,
expressed the same opinion, and conspired to drive away every
young man who happened to be there or tried to approach. Not one
young man of promise remained in the Government service. All
drifted into opposition. The Government did not want them in
Washington. Adams's case was perhaps the strongest because he
thought he had done well. He was forced to guess it, since he
knew no one who would have risked so extravagant a step as that
of encouraging a young man in a literary career, or even in a
political one; society forbade it, as well as residence in a
political capital; but Harvard College must have seen some hope
for him, since it made him professor against his will; even the
publishers and editors of the North American Review must have
felt a certain amount of confidence in him, since they put the
Review in his hands.
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