The silver minority made an obstinate attempt to
prevent it, and most of the majority had little heart in the
creation of a single gold standard. The banks alone, and the
dealers in exchange, insisted upon it; the political parties
divided according to capitalistic geographical lines, Senator
Cameron offering almost the only exception; but they mixed with
unusual good-temper, and made liberal allowance for each others'
actions and motives. The struggle was rather less irritable than
such struggles generally were, and it ended like a comedy. On the
evening of the final vote, Senator Cameron came back from the
Capitol with Senator Brice, Senator Jones, Senator Lodge, and
Moreton Frewen, all in the gayest of humors as though they were
rid of a heavy responsibility. Adams, too, in a bystander's
spirit, felt light in mind. He had stood up for his eighteenth
century, his Constitution of 1789, his George Washington, his
Harvard College, his Quincy, and his Plymouth Pilgrims, as long
as any one would stand up with him. He had said it was hopeless
twenty years before, but he had kept on, in the same old
attitude, by habit and taste, until he found himself altogether
alone. He had hugged his antiquated dislike of bankers and
capitalistic society until he had become little better than a
crank. He had known for years that he must accept the regime, but
he had known a great many other disagreeable certainties -- like
age, senility, and death -- against which one made what little
resistance one could.
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