nothing like so serious as the outbreak between Hoar and Chief
Justice Chase. Adams had come to Washington hoping to support the
Executive in a policy of breaking down the Senate, but he never
dreamed that he would be required to help in breaking down the
Supreme Court. Although, step by step, he had been driven, like
the rest of the world, to admit that American society had
outgrown most of its institutions, he still clung to the Supreme
Court, much as a churchman clings to his bishops, because they
are his only symbol of unity; his last rag of Right. Between the
Executive and the Legislature, citizens could have no Rights;
they were at the mercy of Power. They had created the Court to
protect them from unlimited Power, and it was little enough
protection at best. Adams wanted to save the independence of the
Court at least for his lifetime, and could not conceive that the
Executive should wish to overthrow it.

Frank Walker shared this feeling, and, by way of helping the
Court, he had promised Adams for the North American Review an
article on the history of the Legal Tender Act, founded on a
volume just then published by Spaulding, the putative father of
the legal-tender clause in 1861. Secretary Jacob D. Cox, who
alone sympathized with reform, saved from Boutwell's decree of
banishment such reformers as he could find place for, and he
saved Walker for a time by giving him the Census of 1870. Walker
was obliged to abandon his article for the North American in
order to devote himself to the Census. He gave Adams his notes,
and Adams completed the article.

He had not toiled in vain over the Bank of England Restriction.
He knew enough about Legal Tender to leave it alone. If the banks