CHAPTER III (p. 225)

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

In September, 1830, Mr. Adams notes in his Diary a suggestion made to

him that he might if he wished be elected to the national House of

Representatives from the Plymouth district. The gentleman who threw

out this tentative proposition remarked that in his opinion the

acceptance of this position by an ex-President "instead of degrading

the individual would elevate the representative character." Mr. Adams

replied, that he "had in that respect no scruple whatever. No person

could be degraded by serving the people as a Representative in

Congress. Nor in my opinion would an ex-President of the United States

be degraded by serving as a selectman of his town, if elected thereto

by the people." A few weeks later his election was accomplished by a

flattering vote, the poll showing for him 1817 votes out of 2565, with

only 373 for the next candidate. He continued thenceforth to represent

this district until his death, a period of about sixteen years. During

this time he was occasionally suggested as a candidate for the (p. 226)

governorship of the State, but was always reluctant to stand. The

feeling between the Freemasons and the anti-Masons ran very high for

several years, and once he was prevailed upon to allow his name to be

used by the latter party. The result was that there was no election by

the people; and as he had been very loath to enter the contest in the

beginning, he insisted upon withdrawing from before the legislature.

We have now therefore only to pursue his career in the lower house of

Congress.

Unfortunately, but of obvious necessity, it is possible to touch only

upon the more salient points of this which was really by far the most

striking and distinguished portion of his life. To do more than this

would involve an explanation of the politics of the country and the

measures before Congress much more elaborate than would be possible in

this volume. It will be necessary, therefore, to confine ourselves to

drawing a picture of him in his character as the great combatant of

Southern slavery. In the waging of this mighty conflict we shall see

both his mind and his character developing in strength even in these

years of his old age, and his traits standing forth in bolder relief

than ever before. In his place on the floor of the House of

Representatives he was destined to appear a more impressive figure

than in any of the higher positions which he had previously (p. 227)

filled. There he was to do his greatest work and to win a peculiar and

distinctive glory which takes him out of the general throng even of

famous statesmen, and entitles his name to be remembered with an

especial reverence. Adequately to sketch his achievements, and so to

do his memory the honor which it deserves, would require a pen as

eloquent as has been wielded by any writer of our language. I can only

attempt a brief and insufficient narrative.

* * * * *

In his conscientious way he was faithful and industrious to a rare

degree. He was never absent and seldom late; he bore unflinchingly the

burden of severe committee work, and shirked no toil on the plea of

age or infirmity. He attended closely to all the business of the

House; carefully formed his opinions on every question; never failed

to vote except for cause; and always had a sufficient reason

independent of party allegiance to sustain his vote. Living in the age

of oratory, he earned the name of "the old man eloquent." Yet he was

not an orator in the sense in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were

orators. He was not a rhetorician; he had neither grace of manner nor

a fine presence, neither an imposing delivery, nor even pleasing

tones. On the contrary, he was exceptionally lacking in all these (p. 228)

qualities. He was short, rotund, and bald; about the time when he

entered Congress, complaints become frequent in his Diary of weak and

inflamed eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water

would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to

such an extent that in time he had to use artificial assistance to

steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break,

piercing enough to make itself heard, but not agreeable. This hardly

seems the picture of an orator; nor was it to any charm of elocution

that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that men soon

learned that what he said was always well worth hearing. When he

entered Congress he had been for much more than a third of a century

zealously gathering knowledge in public affairs, and during his career

in that body every year swelled the already vast accumulation.

Moreover, listeners were always sure to get a bold and an honest

utterance and often pretty keen words from him, and he never spoke to

an inattentive audience or to a thin house. Whether pleased or

incensed by what he said, the Representatives at least always listened

to it. He was by nature a hard fighter, and by the circumstances of

his course in Congress this quality was stimulated to such a degree

that parliamentary history does not show his equal as a gladiator. (p. 229)

His power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and

merciless in his use of it. Theoretically he disapproved of sarcasm,

but practically he could not refrain from it. Men winced and cowered

before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious

with mad rage before his fiercer assaults. Such struggles evidently

gave him pleasure, and there was scarce a back in Congress that did

not at one time or another feel the score of his cutting lash; though

it was the Southerners and the Northern allies of Southerners whom

chiefly he singled out for torture. He was irritable and quick to

wrath; he himself constantly speaks of the infirmity of his temper,

and in his many conflicts his principal concern was to keep it in

control. His enemies often referred to it and twitted him with it. Of

alliances he was careless, and friendships he had almost none. But in

the creation of enmities he was terribly successful. Not so much at

first, but increasingly as years went on, a state of ceaseless,

vigilant hostility became his normal condition. From the time when he

fairly entered upon the long struggle against slavery, he enjoyed few

peaceful days in the House. But he seemed to thrive upon the warfare,

and to be never so well pleased as when he was bandying hot words with

slave-holders and the Northern supporters of slave-holders. When (p. 230)

the air of the House was thick with crimination and abuse he seemed to

suck in fresh vigor and spirit from the hate-laden atmosphere. When

invective fell around him in showers, he screamed back his retaliation

with untiring rapidity and marvellous dexterity of aim. No odds could

appall him. With his back set firm against a solid moral principle, it

was his joy to strike out at a multitude of foes. They lost their heads

as well as their tempers, but in the extremest moments of excitement

and anger Mr. Adams's brain seemed to work with machine-like coolness

and accuracy. With flushed face, streaming eyes, animated gesticulation,

and cracking voice, he always retained perfect mastery of all his

intellectual faculties. He thus became a terrible antagonist, whom all

feared, yet fearing could not refrain from attacking, so bitterly and

incessantly did he choose to exert his wonderful power of

exasperation. Few men could throw an opponent into wild blind fury

with such speed and certainty as he could; and he does not conceal the

malicious gratification which such feats brought to him. A leader of

such fighting capacity, so courageous, with such a magazine of

experience and information, and with a character so irreproachable,

could have won brilliant victories in public life at the head of (p. 231)

even a small band of devoted followers. But Mr. Adams never had and

apparently never wanted followers. Other prominent public men were

brought not only into collision but into comparison with their

contemporaries. But Mr. Adams's individuality was so strong that he

can be compared with no one. It was not an individuality of genius nor

to any remarkable extent of mental qualities; but rather an

individuality of character. To this fact is probably to be attributed

his peculiar solitariness. Men touch each other for purposes of

attachment through their characters much more than through their

minds. But few men, even in agreeing with Mr. Adams, felt themselves

in sympathy with him. Occasionally conscience, or invincible logic, or

even policy and self-interest, might compel one or another politician

to stand beside him in debate or in voting; but no current of fellow

feeling ever passed between such temporary comrades and him. It was

the cold connection of duty or of business. The first instinct of

nearly every one was opposition towards him; coalition might be forced

by circumstances but never came by volition. For the purpose of

winning immediate successes this was of course a most unfortunate

condition of relationships. Yet it had some compensations: it left

such influence as Mr. Adams could exert by steadfastness and (p. 232)

argument entirely unweakened by suspicion of hidden motives or

personal ends. He had the weight and enjoyed the respect which a

sincerity beyond distrust must always command in the long run. Of this

we shall see some striking instances.

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.

The nullification chapter of our history cannot here be entered (p. 234)

upon at length, and Mr. Adams's connection with it must be very

shortly stated. At the first meeting of his committee he remarks: "A

reduction of the duties upon many of the articles in the tariff was

understood by all to be the object to be effected;" and a little later

he said that he should be disposed to give such aid as he could to any

plan for this reduction which the Treasury Department should devise.

"He should certainly not consent to sacrifice the manufacturing

interest," he said, "but something of concession would be due from

that interest to appease the discontents of the South." He was in a

reasonable frame of mind; but unfortunately other people were rapidly

ceasing to be reasonable. When Jackson's message of December 4, 1832,

was promulgated, showing a disposition to do for South Carolina pretty

much all that she demanded, Mr. Adams was bitterly indignant. The

message, he said, "recommends a total change in the policy of the

Union with reference to the Bank, manufactures, internal improvement,

and the public lands. It goes to dissolve the Union into its original

elements, and is in substance a complete surrender to the nullifiers

of South Carolina." When, somewhat later on, the President lost his

temper and flamed out in his famous proclamation to meet the (p. 235)

nullification ordinance, he spoke in tones more pleasing to Mr. Adams.

But the ultimate compromise which disposed of the temporary dissension

without permanently settling the fundamental question of the

constitutional right of nullification was extremely distasteful to

him. He was utterly opposed to the concessions which were made while

South Carolina still remained contumacious. He was for compelling her

to retire altogether from her rebellious position and to repeal her

unconstitutional enactments wholly and unconditionally, before one jot

should be abated from the obnoxious duties. When the bill for the

modification of the tariff was under debate, he moved to strike out

all but the enacting clause, and supported his motion in a long

speech, insisting that no tariff ought to pass until it was known

"whether there was any measure by which a State could defeat the laws

of the Union." In a minority report from his own committee he strongly

censured the policy of the Administration. He was for meeting,

fighting out, and determining at this crisis the whole doctrine of

state rights and secession. "One particle of compromise," he said,

with what truth events have since shown clearly enough, would

"directly lead to the final and irretrievable dissolution of the

Union." In his usual strong and thorough-going fashion he was for (p. 236)

persisting in the vigorous and spirited measures, the mere brief

declaration of which, though so quickly receded from, won for Jackson

a measure of credit greater than he deserved. Jackson was thrown into

a great rage by the threats of South Carolina, and replied to them

with the same prompt wrath with which he had sometimes resented

insults from individuals. But in his cool inner mind he was in

sympathy with the demands which that State preferred, and though

undoubtedly he would have fought her, had the dispute been forced to

that pass, yet he was quite willing to make concessions, which were in

fact in consonance with his own views as well as with hers, in order

to avoid that sad conclusion. He was satisfied to have the instant

emergency pass over in a manner rendered superficially creditable to

himself by his outburst of temper, under cover of which he sacrificed

the substantial matter of principle without a qualm. He shook his fist

and shouted defiance in the face of the nullifiers, while Mr. Clay

smuggled a comfortable concession into their pockets. Jackson,

notwithstanding his belligerent attitude, did all he could to help

Clay and was well pleased with the result. Mr. Adams was not. He

watched the disingenuous game with disgust. It is certain that if he

had still been in the White House, the matter would have had a (p. 237)

very different ending, bloodier, it may be, and more painful, but

much more conclusive.

For the most part Mr. Adams found himself in opposition to President

Jackson's Administration. This was not attributable to any sense of

personal hostility towards a successful rival, but to an inevitable

antipathy towards the measures, methods, and ways adopted by the

General so unfortunately transferred to civil life. Few intelligent

persons, and none having the statesman habit of mind, befriended the

reckless, violent, eminently unstatesmanlike President. His ultimate

weakness in the nullification matter, his opposition to internal

improvements, his policy of sacrificing the public lands to individual

speculators, his warfare against the Bank of the United States

conducted by methods the most unjustifiable, the transaction of the

removal of the deposits so disreputable and injurious in all its

details, the importation of Mrs. Eaton's visiting-list into the

politics and government of the country, the dismissal of the oldest

and best public servants as a part of the nefarious system of using

public offices as rewards for political aid and personal adherence,

the formation from base ingredients of the ignoble "Kitchen

Cabinet,"--all these doings, together with much more of the like (p. 238)

sort, constituted a career which could only seem blundering,

undignified, and dishonorable in the eyes of a man like Mr. Adams, who

regarded statesmanship with the reverence due to the noblest of human

callings.

Right as Mr. Adams was generally in his opposition to Jackson, yet

once he deserves credit for the contrary course. This was in the

matter of our relations with France. The treaty of 1831 secured to

this country an indemnity of $5,000,000, which, however, it had never

been possible to collect. This procrastination raised Jackson's ever

ready ire, and casting to the winds any further dunning, he resolved

either to have the money or to fight for it. He sent a message to

Congress, recommending that if France should not promptly settle the

account, letters of marque and reprisal against her commerce should be

issued. He ordered Edward Livingston, minister at Paris, to demand his

passports and cross over to London. These eminently proper and

ultimately effectual measures alarmed the large party of the timid;

and the General found himself in danger of extensive desertions even

on the part of his usual supporters. But as once before in a season of

his dire extremity his courage and vigor had brought the potent aid of

Mr. Adams to his side, so now again he came under a heavy debt of (p. 239)

gratitude to the same champion. Mr. Adams stood by him with generous

gallantry, and by a telling speech in the House probably saved him

from serious humiliation and even disaster. The President's style of

dealing had roused Mr. Adams's spirit, and he spoke with a fire and

vehemence which accomplished the unusual feat of changing the

predisposed minds of men too familiar with speech-making to be often

much influenced by it in the practical matter of voting. He thought at

the time that the success of this speech, brilliant as it appeared,

was not unlikely to result in his political ruin. Jackson would

befriend and reward his thorough-going partisans at any cost to his

own conscience or the public welfare; but the exceptional aid,

tendered not from a sense of personal fealty to himself, but simply

from the motive of aiding the right cause happening in the especial

instance to have been espoused by him, never won from him any token of

regard. In November, 1837, Mr. Adams, speaking of his personal

relations with the President, said:--

"Though I had served him more than any other living man ever did,

and though I supported his Administration at the hazard of my own

political destruction, and effected for him at a moment when his

own friends were deserting him what no other member of Congress

ever accomplished for him--an unanimous vote of the House of (p. 240)

Representatives to support him in his quarrel with France; though

I supported him in other very critical periods of his Administration,

my return from him was insult, indignity, and slander."

Antipathy had at last become the definitive condition of these two

men--antipathy both political and personal. At one time a singular

effort to reconcile them--probably though not certainly undertaken

with the knowledge of Jackson--was made by Richard M. Johnson. This

occurred shortly before the inauguration of the war conducted by the

President against the Bank of the United States; and judging by the

rest of Jackson's behavior at this period, there was probably at least

as much of calculation in his motives, if in fact he was cognizant of

Johnson's approaches, as there was of any real desire to reëstablish

the bygone relation of honorable friendship. To the advances thus made

Mr. Adams replied a little coldly, not quite repellently, that Jackson,

having been responsible for the suspension of personal intercourse,

must now be undisguisedly the active party in renewing it. At the same

time he professed himself "willing to receive in a spirit of

conciliation any advance which in that spirit General Jackson might

make." But nothing came of this intrinsically hopeless attempt. On

the contrary the two drew rapidly and more widely apart, and (p. 241)

entertained concerning each other opinions which grew steadily more

unfavorable, and upon Adams's part more contemptuous, as time went on.

Fifteen months later General Jackson made his visit to Boston, and it

was proposed that Harvard College should confer upon him the degree of

Doctor of Laws. The absurdity of the act, considered simply in itself,

was admitted by all. But the argument in its favor was based upon the

established usage of the College as towards all other Presidents, so

that its omission in this case might seem a personal slight. Mr. Adams,

being at the time a member of the Board of Overseers, strongly opposed

the proposition, but of course in vain. All that he could do was, for

his own individual part, to refuse to be present at the conferring of

the degree, giving as the minor reason for his absence, that he could

hold no friendly intercourse with the President, but for the major

reason that "independent of that, as myself an affectionate child of

our Alma Mater, I would not be present to witness her disgrace in

conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not

write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name." "A

Doctorate of Laws," he said, "for which an apology was necessary, was

a cheap honor and ... a sycophantic compliment." After the deed (p. 242)

was done, he used to amuse himself by speaking of "Doctor Andrew

Jackson." This same eastern tour of Jackson's called forth many other

expressions of bitter sarcasm from Adams. The President was ill and

unable to carry out the programme of entertainment and exhibition

prepared for him: whereupon Mr. Adams remarks:--

"I believe much of his debility is politic.... He is one of our

tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity, like John

Randolph, who for forty years was always dying. Jackson, ever

since he became a mark of public attention, has been doing the

same thing.... He is now alternately giving out his chronic

diarrhoea and making Warren bleed him for a pleurisy, and

posting to Cambridge for a doctorate of laws; mounting the

monument of Bunker's Hill to hear a fulsome address and receive

two cannon balls from Edward Everett," etc. "Four fifths of his

sickness is trickery, and the other fifth mere fatigue."

This sounds, it must be confessed, a trifle rancorous; but Adams had

great excuse for nourishing rancor towards Jackson.

It is time, however, to return to the House of Representatives. It was

not by bearing his share in the ordinary work of that body, important

or exciting as that might at one time or another happen to be, that

Mr. Adams was to win in Congress that reputation which has been (p. 243)

already described as far overshadowing all his previous career. A

special task and a peculiar mission were before him. It was a part of

his destiny to become the champion of the anti-slavery cause in the

national legislature. Almost the first thing which he did after he had

taken his seat in Congress was to present "fifteen petitions signed

numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of

slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia." He simply

moved their reference to the Committee on the District of Columbia,

declaring that he should not support that part of the petition which

prayed for abolition in the District. The time had not yet come when

the South felt much anxiety at such manifestations, and these first

stones were dropped into the pool without stirring a ripple on the

surface. For about four years more we hear little in the Diary

concerning slavery. It was not until 1835, when the annexation of

Texas began to be mooted, that the North fairly took the alarm, and

the irrepressible conflict began to develop. Then at once we find Mr.

Adams at the front. That he had always cherished an abhorrence of

slavery and a bitter antipathy to slave-holders as a class is

sufficiently indicated by many chance remarks scattered through his

Diary from early years. Now that a great question, vitally (p. 244)

affecting the slave power, divided the country into parties and

inaugurated the struggle which never again slept until it was settled

forever by the result of the civil war, Mr. Adams at once assumed the

function of leader. His position should be clearly understood; for in

the vast labor which lay before the abolition party different tasks

fell to different men. Mr. Adams assumed to be neither an agitator nor

a reformer; by necessity of character, training, fitness, and official

position, he was a legislator and statesman. The task which accident

or destiny allotted to him was neither to preach among the people a

crusade against slavery, nor to devise and keep in action the thousand

resources which busy men throughout the country were constantly

multiplying for the purpose of spreading and increasing a popular

hostility towards the great "institution." Every great cause has need

of its fanatics, its vanguard to keep far in advance of what is for

the time reasonable and possible; it has not less need of the wiser

and cooler heads to discipline and control the great mass which is set

in motion by the reckless forerunners, to see to the accomplishment of

that which the present circumstances and development of the movement

allow to be accomplished. It fell to Mr. Adams to direct the (p. 245)

assault against the outworks which were then vulnerable, and to see

that the force then possessed by the movement was put to such uses as

would insure definite results instead of being wasted in endeavors

which as yet were impossible of achievement. Drawing his duty from his

situation and surroundings, he left to others, to younger men and more

rhetorical natures, outside the walls of Congress, the business of

firing the people and stirring popular opinion and sympathy. He was

set to do that portion of the work of abolition which was to be done

in Congress, to encounter the mighty efforts which were made to stifle

the great humanitarian cry in the halls of the national legislature.

This was quite as much as one man was equal to; in fact, it is certain

that no one then in public life except Mr. Adams could have done it

effectually. So obvious is this that one cannot help wondering what

would have befallen the cause, had he not been just where he was to

forward it in just the way that he did. It is only another among the

many instances of the need surely finding the man. His qualifications

were unique; his ability, his knowledge, his prestige and authority,

his high personal character, his persistence and courage, his

combativeness stimulated by an acrimonious temper but checked by a

sound judgment, his merciless power of invective, his independence (p. 246)

and carelessness of applause or vilification, friendship or enmity,

constituted him an opponent fully equal to the enormous odds which the

slave-holding interest arrayed against him. A like moral and mental

fitness was to be found in no one else. Numbers could not overawe him,

nor loneliness dispirit him. He was probably the most formidable

fighter in debate of whom parliamentary records preserve the memory.

The hostility which he encountered beggars description; the English

language was deficient in adequate words of virulence and contempt to

express the feelings which were entertained towards him. At home he

had not the countenance of that class in society to which he naturally

belonged. A second time he found the chief part of the gentlemen of

Boston and its vicinity, the leading lawyers, the rich merchants, the

successful manufacturers, not only opposed to him, but entertaining

towards him sentiments of personal dislike and even vindictiveness.

This stratum of the community, having a natural distaste for disquieting

agitation and influenced by class feeling,--the gentlemen of the North

sympathizing with the "aristocracy" of the South,--could not make

common cause with anti-slavery people. Fortunately, however, Mr. Adams

was returned by a country district where the old Puritan instincts (p. 247)

were still strong. The intelligence and free spirit of New England

were at his back, and were fairly represented by him; in spite of

high-bred disfavor they carried him gallantly through the long

struggle. The people of the Plymouth district sent him back to the

House every two years from the time of his first election to the year

of his death, and the disgust of the gentlemen of Boston was after all

of trifling consequence to him and of no serious influence upon the

course of history. The old New England instinct was in him as it was

in the mass of the people; that instinct made him the real exponent of

New England thought, belief, and feeling, and that same instinct made

the great body of voters stand by him with unswerving constancy. When

his fellow Representatives, almost to a man, deserted him, he was

sustained by many a token of sympathy and admiration coming from among

the people at large. Time and the history of the United States have

been his potent vindicators. The conservative, conscienceless

respectability of wealth was, as is usually the case with it in the

annals of the Anglo-Saxon race, quite in the wrong and predestined to

well-merited defeat. It adds to the honor due to Mr. Adams that his

sense of right was true enough, and that his vision was clear enough,

to lead him out of that strong thraldom which class feelings, (p. 248)

traditions, and comradeship are wont to exercise.

But it is time to resume the narrative and to let Mr. Adams's acts--of

which after all it is possible to give only the briefest sketch,

selecting a few of the more striking incidents--tell the tale of his

Congressional life.

On February 14, 1835, Mr. Adams again presented two petitions for the

abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but without giving

rise to much excitement. The fusillade was, however, getting too thick

and fast to be endured longer with indifference by the impatient

Southerners. At the next session of Congress they concluded to try to

stop it, and their ingenious scheme was to make Congress shot-proof,

so to speak, against such missiles. On January 4, 1836, Mr. Adams

presented an abolition petition couched in the usual form, and moved

that it be laid on the table, as others like it had lately been. But

in a moment Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, moved that the petition be not

received. Debate sprang up on a point of order, and two days later,

before the question of reception was determined, a resolution was

offered by Mr. Jarvis, of Maine, declaring that the House would not

entertain any petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District

of Columbia. This resolution was supported on the ground that (p. 249)

Congress had no constitutional power in the premises. Some days

later, January 18, 1836, before any final action had been reached upon

this proposition, Mr. Adams presented some more abolition petitions,

one of them signed by "one hundred and forty-eight ladies, citizens of

the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; for, I said, I had not yet brought

myself to doubt whether females were citizens." The usual motion not

to receive was made, and then a new device was resorted to in the

shape of a motion that the motion not to receive be laid on the table.

On February 8, 1836, this novel scheme for shutting off petitions

against slavery immediately upon their presentation was referred to a

select committee of which Mr. Pinckney was chairman. On May 18 this

committee reported in substance: 1. That Congress had no power to

interfere with slavery in any State; 2. That Congress ought not to

interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia; 3. That whereas

the agitation of the subject was disquieting and objectionable, "all

petitions, memorials, resolutions or papers, relating in any way or to

any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of

slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon

the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had (p. 250)

thereon." When it came to taking a vote upon this report a division of

the question was called for, and the yeas and nays were ordered. The

first resolution was then read, whereupon Mr. Adams at once rose and

pledged himself, if the House would allow him five minutes' time, to

prove it to be false. But cries of "order" resounded; he was compelled

to take his seat and the resolution was adopted by 182 to 9. Upon the

second resolution he asked to be excused from voting, and his name was

passed in the call. The third resolution with its preamble was then

read, and Mr. Adams, so soon as his name was called, rose and said: "I

hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of

the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my

constituents." He was interrupted by shrieks of "order" resounding on

every side; but he only spoke the louder and obstinately finished his

sentence before resuming his seat. The resolution was of course agreed

to, the vote standing 117 to 68. Such was the beginning of the famous

"gag" which became and long remained--afterward in a worse shape--a

standing rule of the House. Regularly in each new Congress when the

adoption of rules came up, Mr. Adams moved to rescind the "gag;" but

for many years his motions continued to be voted down, as a (p. 251)

matter of course. Its imposition was clearly a mistake on the part of

the slave-holding party; free debate would almost surely have hurt

them less than this interference with the freedom of petition. They

had assumed an untenable position. Henceforth, as the persistent

advocate of the right of petition, Mr. Adams had a support among the

people at large vastly greater than he could have enjoyed as the

opponent of slavery. As his adversaries had shaped the issue he was

predestined to victory in a free country.

A similar scene was enacted on December 21 and 22, 1837. A "gag" or

"speech-smothering" resolution being then again before the House, Mr.

Adams, when his name was called in the taking of the vote, cried out

"amidst a perfect war-whoop of 'order:' 'I hold the resolution to be a

violation of the Constitution, of the right of petition of my

constituents and of the people of the United States, and of my right

to freedom of speech as a member of this House.'" Afterward, in

reading over the names of members who had voted, the clerk omitted

that of Mr. Adams, this utterance of his not having constituted a

vote. Mr. Adams called attention to the omission. The clerk, by

direction of the Speaker, thereupon called his name. His only reply

was by a motion that his answer as already made should be entered (p. 252)

on the Journal. The Speaker said that this motion was not in order.

Mr. Adams, resolute to get upon the record, requested that his motion

with the Speaker's decision that it was not in order might be entered

on the Journal. The next day, finding that this entry had not been

made in proper shape, he brought up the matter again. One of his

opponents made a false step, and Mr. Adams "bantered him" upon it

until the other was provoked into saying that, "if the question ever

came to the issue of war, the Southern people would march into New

England and conquer it." Mr. Adams replied that no doubt they would if

they could; that he entered his resolution upon the Journal because he

was resolved that his opponent's "name should go down to posterity

damned to everlasting fame." No one ever gained much in a war of words

with this ever-ready and merciless tongue.

Mr. Adams, having soon become known to all the nation as the

indomitable presenter of anti-slavery petitions, quickly found that

great numbers of people were ready to keep him busy in this trying

task. For a long while it was almost as much as he could accomplish to

receive, sort, schedule, and present the infinite number of petitions

and memorials which came to him praying for the abolition of slavery

and of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and opposing (p. 253)

the annexation of Texas. It was an occupation not altogether devoid

even of physical danger, and calling for an amount of moral courage

greater than it is now easy to appreciate. It is the incipient stage

of such a conflict that tests the mettle of the little band of

innovators. When it grows into a great party question much less

courage is demanded. The mere presentation of an odious petition may

seem in itself to be a simple task; but to find himself in a constant

state of antagonism to a powerful, active, and vindictive majority in

a debating body, constituted of such material as then made up the

House of Representatives, wore hardly even upon the iron temper and

inflexible disposition of Mr. Adams. "The most insignificant error of

conduct in me at this time," he writes in April, 1837, "would be my

irredeemable ruin in this world; and both the ruling political parties

are watching with intense anxiety for some overt act by me to set the

whole pack of their hireling presses upon me." But amid the host of

foes, and aware that he could count upon the aid of scarcely a single

hearty and daring friend, he labored only the more earnestly. The

severe pressure against him begat only the more severe counter

pressure upon his part.

Besides these natural and legitimate difficulties, Mr. Adams was (p. 254)

further in the embarrassing position of one who has to fear as much

from the imprudence of allies as from open hostility of antagonists,

and he was often compelled to guard against a peculiar risk coming

from his very coadjutors in the great cause. The extremists who had

cast aside all regard for what was practicable, and who utterly

scorned to consider the feasibility or the consequences of measures

which seemed to them to be correct as abstract propositions of

morality, were constantly urging him to action which would only have

destroyed him forever in political life, would have stripped him of

his influence, exiled him from that position in Congress where he

could render the most efficient service that was in him, and left him

naked of all usefulness and utterly helpless to continue that

essential portion of the labor which could be conducted by no one

else. "The abolitionists generally," he said, "are constantly urging

me to indiscreet movements, which would ruin me, and weaken and not

strengthen their cause." His family, on the other hand, sought to

restrain him from all connection with these dangerous partisans.

"Between these adverse impulses," he writes, "my mind is agitated

almost to distraction.... I walk on the edge of a precipice almost

every step that I take." In the midst of all this anxiety, (p. 255)

however, he was fortunately supported by the strong commendation of

his constituents which they once loyally declared by formal and

unanimous votes in a convention summoned for the express purpose of

manifesting their support. His feelings appear by an entry in his

Diary in October, 1837:--

"I have gone [he said] as far upon this article, the abolition of

slavery, as the public opinion of the free portion of the Union

will bear, and so far that scarcely a slave-holding member of the

House dares to vote with me upon any question. I have as yet been

thoroughly sustained by my own State, but one step further and I

hazard my own standing and influence there, my own final

overthrow, and the cause of liberty itself for an indefinite

time, certainly for more than my remnant of life. Were there in

the House one member capable of taking the lead in this cause of

universal emancipation, which is moving onward in the world and

in this country, I would withdraw from the contest which will

rage with increasing fury as it draws to its crisis, but for the

management of which my age, infirmities, and approaching end

totally disqualify me. There is no such man in the House."

September 15, 1837, he says: "I have been for some time occupied day

and night, when at home, in assorting and recording the petitions and

remonstrances against the annexation of Texas, and other (p. 256)

anti-slavery petitions, which flow upon me in torrents." The next day

he presented the singular petition of one Sherlock S. Gregory, who had

conceived the eccentric notion of asking Congress to declare him "an

alien or stranger in the land so long as slavery exists and the wrongs

of the Indians are unrequited and unrepented of." September 28 he

presented a batch of his usual petitions, and also asked leave to

offer a resolution calling for a report concerning the coasting trade

in slaves. "There was what Napoleon would have called a superb NO!

returned to my request from the servile side of the House." The next

day he presented fifty-one more like documents, and notes having

previously presented one hundred and fifty more.

In December, 1837, still at this same work, he made a hard but

fruitless effort to have the Texan remonstrances and petitions sent to

a select committee instead of to that on foreign affairs which was

constituted in the Southern interest. On December 29 he "presented

several bundles of abolition and anti-slavery petitions," and said

that, having declared his opinion that the gag-rule was unconstitutional,

null, and void, he should "submit to it only as to physical force."

January 3, 1838, he presented "about a hundred petitions, (p. 257)

memorials, and remonstrances,--all laid on the table." January 15 he

presented fifty more. January 28 he received thirty-one petitions, and

spent that day and the next in assorting and filing these and others

which he previously had, amounting in all to one hundred and twenty.

February 14, in the same year, was a field-day in the petition campaign:

he presented then no less than three hundred and fifty petitions, all

but three or four of which bore more or less directly upon the slavery

question. Among these petitions was one

"praying that Congress would take measures to protect citizens

from the North going to the South from danger to their lives.

When the motion to lay that on the table was made, I said that,

'In another part of the Capitol it had been threatened that if a

Northern abolitionist should go to North Carolina, and utter a

principle of the Declaration of Independence'--Here a loud cry of

'order! order!' burst forth, in which the Speaker yelled the

loudest. I waited till it subsided, and then resumed, 'that if

they could catch him they would hang him!' I said this so as to

be distinctly heard throughout the hall, the renewed deafening

shout of 'order! order!' notwithstanding. The Speaker then said,

'The gentleman from Massachusetts will take his seat;' which I

did and immediately rose again and presented another petition. He

did not dare tell me that I could not proceed without (p. 258)

permission of the House, and I proceeded. The threat to hang

Northern abolitionists was uttered by Preston of the Senate

within the last fortnight."

On March 12, of the same year, he presented ninety-six petitions,

nearly all of an anti-slavery character, one of them for "expunging

the Declaration of Independence from the Journals."

On December 14, 1838, Mr. Wise, of Virginia, objected to the reception

of certain anti-slavery petitions. The Speaker ruled his objection out

of order, and from this ruling Wise appealed. The question on the

appeal was taken by yeas and nays. When Mr. Adams's name was called,

he relates:--

"I rose and said, 'Mr. Speaker, considering all the resolutions

introduced by the gentleman from New Hampshire as'--The Speaker

roared out, 'The gentleman from Massachusetts must answer Aye or

No, and nothing else. Order!' With a reinforced voice--'I refuse

to answer, because I consider all the proceedings of the House as

unconstitutional'--While in a firm and swelling voice I pronounced

distinctly these words, the Speaker and about two thirds of the

House cried, 'order! order! order!' till it became a perfect

yell. I paused a moment for it to cease and then said, 'a direct

violation of the Constitution of the United States.' While

speaking these words with loud, distinct, and slow (p. 259)

articulation, the bawl of 'order! order!' resounded again from

two thirds of the House. The Speaker, with agonizing lungs,

screamed, 'I call upon the House to support me in the execution

of my duty!' I then coolly resumed my seat. Waddy Thompson, of

South Carolina, advancing into one of the aisles with a sarcastic

smile and silvery tone of voice, said, 'What aid from the House

would the Speaker desire?' The Speaker snarled back, 'The

gentleman from South Carolina is out of order!' and a peal of

laughter burst forth from all sides of the House."

So that little skirmish ended, much more cheerfully than was often the

case.

December 20, 1838, he presented fifty anti-slavery petitions, among

which were three praying for the recognition of the Republic of Hayti.

Petitions of this latter kind he strenuously insisted should be

referred to a select committee, or else to the Committee on Foreign

Affairs, accompanied in the latter case with explicit instructions

that a report thereon should be brought in. He audaciously stated that

he asked for these instructions because so many petitions of a like

tenor had been sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and had found it

a limbo from which they never again emerged, and the chairman had said

that this would continue to be the case. The chairman, sitting two

rows behind Mr. Adams, said, "that insinuation should not be (p. 260)

made against a gentleman!" "I shall make," retorted Mr. Adams, "what

insinuation I please. This is not an insinuation, but a direct,

positive assertion."

January 7, 1839, he cheerfully records that he presented ninety-five

petitions, bearing "directly or indirectly upon the slavery topics,"

and some of them very exasperating in their language. March 30, 1840,

he handed in no less than five hundred and eleven petitions, many of

which were not receivable under the "gag" rule adopted on January 28

of that year, which had actually gone the length of refusing so much

as a reception to abolition petitions. April 13, 1840, he presented a

petition for the repeal of the laws in the District of Columbia, which

authorized the whipping of women. Besides this he had a multitude of

others, and he only got through the presentation of them "just as the

morning hour expired." On January 21, 1841, he found much amusement in

puzzling his Southern adversaries by presenting some petitions in

which, besides the usual anti-slavery prayers, there was a prayer to

refuse to admit to the Union any new State whose constitution should

tolerate slavery. The Speaker said that only the latter prayer could

be _received_ under the "gag" rule. Connor, of North Carolina, (p. 261)

moved to lay on the table so much of the petition as could be

received. Mr. Adams tauntingly suggested that in order to do this it

would be necessary to mutilate the document by cutting it into two

pieces; whereat there was great wrath and confusion, "the House got

into a snarl, the Speaker knew not what to do." The Southerners raved

and fumed for a while, and finally resorted to their usual expedient,

and dropped altogether a matter which so sorely burned their fingers.

A fact, very striking in view of the subsequent course of events,

concerning Mr. Adams's relation with the slavery question, seems

hitherto to have escaped the attention of those who have dealt with

his career. It may as well find a place here as elsewhere in a

narrative which it is difficult to make strictly chronological.

Apparently he was the first to declare the doctrine, that the

abolition of slavery could be lawfully accomplished by the exercise of

the war powers of the Government. The earliest expression of this

principle is found in a speech made by him in May, 1836, concerning

the distribution of rations to fugitives from Indian hostilities in

Alabama and Georgia. He then said:--

"From the instant that your slave-holding States become the

theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant (p. 262)

the war powers of the Constitution extend to interference with

the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be

interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or

destroyed, to a cession of the State burdened with slavery to a

foreign power."

In June, 1841, he made a speech of which no report exists, but the

contents of which may be in part learned from the replies and

references to it which are on record. Therein he appears to have

declared that slavery could be abolished in the exercise of the

treaty-making power, having reference doubtless to a treaty concluding

a war.

These views were of course mere abstract expressions of opinion as to

the constitutionality of measures the real occurrence of which was

anticipated by nobody. But, as the first suggestions of a doctrine in

itself most obnoxious to the Southern theory and fundamentally

destructive of the great Southern "institution" under perfectly

possible circumstances, this enunciation by Mr. Adams gave rise to

much indignation. Instead of allowing the imperfectly formulated

principle to lose its danger in oblivion, the Southerners assailed it

with vehemence. They taunted Mr. Adams with the opinion, as if merely

to say that he held it was to damn him to everlasting infamy. The only

result was that they induced him to consider the matter more (p. 263)

fully, and to express his belief more deliberately. In January, 1842,

Mr. Wise attacked him upon this ground, and a month later Marshall

followed in the same strain. These assaults were perhaps the direct

incentive to what was said soon after by Mr. Adams, on April 14, 1842,

in a speech concerning war with England and with Mexico, of which

there was then some talk. Giddings, among other resolutions, had

introduced one to the effect that the slave States had the exclusive

right to be consulted on the subject of slavery. Mr. Adams said that

he could not give his assent to this. One of the laws of war, he said,

is

"that when a country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set

in martial array, the commanders of both armies have power to

emancipate all the slaves in the invaded territory."

He cited some precedents from South American history, and continued:--

"Whether the war be servile, civil, or foreign, I lay this down

as the law of nations. I say that the military authority takes

for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery

among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being

true that the States where slavery exists have the exclusive

management of the subject, not only the President of the United

States but the commander of the army has power to order (p. 264)

the universal emancipation of the slaves."

This declaration of constitutional doctrine was made with much

positiveness and emphasis. There for many years the matter rested. The

principle had been clearly asserted by Mr. Adams, angrily repudiated

by the South, and in the absence of the occasion of war there was

nothing more to be done in the matter. But when the exigency at last

came, and the government of the United States was brought face to face

with by far the gravest constitutional problem presented by the great

rebellion, then no other solution presented itself save that which had

been suggested twenty years earlier in the days of peace by Mr. Adams.

It was in pursuance of the doctrine to which he thus gave the first

utterance that slavery was forever abolished in the United States.

Extracts from the last-quoted speech long stood as the motto of the

"Liberator;" and at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation Mr.

Adams was regarded as the chief and sufficient authority for an act so

momentous in its effect, so infinitely useful in a matter of national

extremity. But it was evidently a theory which had taken strong hold

upon him. Besides the foregoing speeches there is an explicit

statement of it in a letter which he wrote from Washington April 4,

1836, to Hon. Solomon Lincoln, of Hingham, a friend and (p. 265)

constituent. After touching upon other topics he says:--

"The new pretensions of the slave representation in Congress of a

right to refuse to receive petitions, and that Congress have no

constitutional power to abolish slavery or the slave-trade in the

District of Columbia, forced upon me so much of the discussion as

I did take upon me, but in which you are well aware I did not and

could not speak a tenth part of my mind. I did not, for example,

start the question whether by the law of God and of nature man

can hold _property_, HEREDITARY property, in man. I did not start

the question whether in the event of a servile insurrection and

war, Congress would not have complete unlimited control over the

whole subject of slavery, even to the emancipation of all the

slaves in the State where such insurrection should break out, and

for the suppression of which the freemen of Plymouth and Norfolk

counties, Massachusetts, should be called by Acts of Congress to

pour out their treasures and to shed their blood. Had I spoken my

mind on these two points, the sturdiest of the abolitionists

would have disavowed the sentiments of their champion."

The projected annexation of Texas, which became a battle-ground

whereon the tide of conflict swayed so long and so fiercely to and

fro, profoundly stirred Mr. Adams's indignation. It is, he said, "a

question of far deeper root and more overshadowing branches than (p. 266)

any or all others that now agitate this country.... I had opened it by

my speech ... on the 25th May, 1836--by far the most noted speech that

I ever made." He based his opposition to the annexation upon

constitutional objections, and on September 18, 1837, offered a

resolution that "the power of annexing the people of any independent

State to this Union is a power not delegated by the Constitution of

the United States to their Congress or to any department of their

government, but reserved to the people." The Speaker refused to

receive the motion, or even allow it to be read, on the ground that it

was not in order. Mr. Adams repeated substantially the same motion in

June, 1838, then adding "that any attempt by act of Congress or by

treaty to annex the Republic of Texas to this Union would be an

usurpation of power which it would be the right and the duty of the

free people of the Union to resist and annul." The story of his

opposition to this measure is, however, so interwoven with his general

antagonism to slavery, that there is little occasion for treating them

separately.[9]

[Footnote 9: In an address to his constituents in

September, 1842, Mr. Adams spoke of his course

concerning Texas. Having mentioned Mr. Van Buren's

reply, declining the formal proposition made in

1837 by the Republic of Texas for annexation to the

United States, he continued: "But the

slave-breeding passion for the annexation was not

to be so disconcerted. At the ensuing session of

Congress numerous petitions and memorials for and

against the annexation were presented to the House,

... and were referred to the Committee of Foreign

Affairs, who, without ever taking them into

consideration, towards the close of the session

asked to be discharged from the consideration of

them all. It was on this report that the debate

arose, in which I disclosed the whole system of

duplicity and perfidy towards Mexico, which had

marked the Jackson Administration from its

commencement to its close. It silenced the clamors

for the annexation of Texas to this Union for three

years till the catastrophe of the Van Buren

Administration. The people of the free States were

lulled into the belief that the whole project was

abandoned, and that they should hear no more of

slave-trade cravings for the annexation of Texas.

Had Harrison lived they would have heard no more of

them to this day, but no sooner was John Tyler

installed in the President's House than

nullification and Texas and war with Mexico rose

again upon the surface, with eye steadily fixed

upon the Polar Star of Southern slave-dealing

supremacy in the government of the Union."]

People sometimes took advantage of his avowed principles (p. 267)

concerning freedom of petition to put him in positions which they

thought would embarrass him or render him ridiculous. Not much

success, however, attended these foolish efforts of shallow wits. It

was not easy to disconcert him or to take him at disadvantage. July

28, 1841, he presented a paper of this character coming from sundry

Virginians and praying that all the free colored population should be

sold or expelled from the country. He simply stated as he handed in

the sheet that nothing could be more abhorrent to him than this (p. 268)

prayer, and that his respect for the right of petition was his

only motive for presenting this. It was suspended under the "gag"

rule, and its promoters, unless very easily amused, must have been

sadly disappointed with the fate and effect of their joke. On March 5,

1838, he received from Rocky Mount in Virginia a letter and petition

praying that the House would arraign at its bar and forever expel John

Quincy Adams. He presented both documents, with a resolution asking

that they be referred to a committee for investigation and report. His

enemies in the House saw that he was sure to have the best of the

sport if the matter should be pursued, and succeeded in laying it on

the table. Waddy Thompson thoughtfully improved the opportunity to

mention to Mr. Adams that he also had received a petition, "numerously

signed," praying for Mr. Adams's expulsion, but had never presented

it. In the following May Mr. Adams presented another petition of like

tenor. Dromgoole said that he supposed it was a "quiz," and that he

would move to lay it on the table, "unless the gentleman from

Massachusetts wished to give it another direction." Mr. Adams said

that "the gentleman from Massachusetts cared very little about it,"

and it found the limbo of the "table."

To this same period belongs the memorable tale of Mr. Adams's (p. 269)

attempt to present a petition from slaves. On February 6, 1837, he

brought in some two hundred abolition petitions. He closed with one

against the slave-trade in the District of Columbia purporting to be

signed by "nine ladies of Fredericksburg, Virginia," whom he declined

to name because, as he said, in the present disposition of the

country, "he did not know what might happen to them if he did name

them." Indeed, he added, he was not sure that the petition was

genuine; he had said, when he began to present his petitions, that

some among them were so peculiar that he was in doubt as to their

genuineness, and this fell within the description. Apparently he had

concluded and was about to take his seat, when he quickly caught up

another sheet, and said that he held in his hand a paper concerning

which he should wish to have the decision of the Speaker before

presenting it. It purported to be a petition from twenty-two slaves,

and he would like to know whether it came within the rule of the House

concerning petitions relating to slavery. The Speaker, in manifest

confusion, said that he could not answer the question until he knew

the contents of the document. Mr. Adams, remarking that "it was one of

those petitions which had occurred to his mind as not being what (p. 270)

it purported to be," proposed to send it up to the Chair for

inspection. Objection was made to this, and the Speaker said that the

circumstances were so extraordinary that he would take the sense of

the House. That body, at first inattentive, now became interested, and

no sooner did a knowledge of what was going on spread among those

present than great excitement prevailed. Members were hastily brought

in from the lobbies; many tried to speak, and from parts of the hall

cries of "Expel him! Expel him!" were heard. For a brief interval no

one of the enraged Southerners was equal to the unforeseen emergency.

Mr. Haynes moved the rejection of the petition. Mr. Lewis deprecated

this motion, being of opinion that the House must inflict punishment

on the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Haynes thereupon withdrew a

motion which was so obviously inadequate to the vindictive gravity of

the occasion. Mr. Grantland stood ready to second a motion to punish

Mr. Adams, and Mr. Lewis said that if punishment should not be meted

out it would "be better for the representatives from the slave-holding

States to go home at once." Mr. Alford said that so soon as the

petition should be presented he would move that it should "be taken

from the House and burned." At last Mr. Thompson got a resolution (p. 271)

into shape as follows:--

"That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by the attempt just made by him

to introduce a petition purporting on its face to be from slaves,

has been guilty of a gross disrespect to this House, and that he

be instantly brought to the bar to receive the severe censure of

the Speaker."

In supporting this resolution he said that Mr. Adams's action was in

gross and wilful violation of the rules of the House and an insult to

its members. He even threatened criminal proceedings before the grand

jury of the District of Columbia, saying that if that body had the

"proper intelligence and spirit" people might "yet see an incendiary

brought to condign punishment." Mr. Haynes, not satisfied with Mr.

Thompson's resolution, proposed a substitute to the effect that Mr.

Adams had "rendered himself justly liable to the severest censure of

this House and is censured accordingly." Then there ensued a little

more excited speech-making and another resolution, that Mr. Adams,

"by his attempt to introduce into this House a petition from

slaves for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,

has committed an outrage on the feelings of the people of a large

portion of this Union; a flagrant contempt on the dignity (p. 272)

of this House; and, by extending to slaves a privilege only

belonging to freemen, directly incites the slave population

to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called to

the bar of the House and be censured by the Speaker."

Mr. Lewis remained of opinion that it might be best for the Southern

members to go home,--a proposition which afterwards drew forth a

flaming speech from Mr. Alford, who, far from inclining to go home,

was ready to stay "until this fair city is a field of Waterloo and

this beautiful Potomac a river of blood." Mr. Patton, of Virginia, was

the first to speak a few words to bring members to their senses,

pertinently asking whether Mr. Adams had "attempted to offer" this

petition, and whether it did indeed pray for the abolition of slavery.

It might be well, he suggested, for his friends to be sure of their

facts before going further. Then at last Mr. Adams, who had not at all

lost his head in the general hurly-burly, rose and said, that amid

these numerous resolutions charging him with "high crimes and

misdemeanors" and calling him to the bar of the House to answer for

the same, he had thought it proper to remain silent until the House

should take some action; that he did not suppose that, if he should be

brought to the bar of the House, he should be "struck mute by the (p. 273)

previous question" before he should have been given an opportunity to

"say a word or two" in his own defence. As to the facts: "I did not

present the petition," he said, "and I appeal to the Speaker to say

that I did not.... I intended to take the decision of the Speaker

before I went one step towards presenting or offering to present that

petition." The contents of the petition, should the House ever choose

to read it, he continued, would render necessary some amendments at

least in the last resolution, since the prayer was that slavery should

_not_ be abolished!" The gentleman from Alabama may perchance find,

that the object of this petition is precisely what he desires to

accomplish; and that these slaves who have sent this paper to me are

his auxiliaries instead of being his opponents."

These remarks caused some discomfiture among the Southern members, who

were glad to have time for deliberation given them by a maundering

speech from Mr. Mann, of New York, who talked about "the deplorable

spectacle shown off every petition day by the honorable member from

Massachusetts in presenting the abolition petitions of his infatuated

friends and constituents," charged Mr. Adams with running counter to

the sense of the whole country with a "violence paralleled only (p. 274)

by the revolutionary madness of desperation," and twitted him with his

political friendlessness, with his age, and with the insinuation of

waning faculties and judgment. This little phial having been emptied,

Mr. Thompson arose and angrily assailed Mr. Adams for contemptuously

trifling with the House, which charge he based upon the entirely

unproved assumption that the petition was not a genuine document. He

concluded by presenting new resolutions better adapted to the recent

development of the case:--

"1. That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by an effort to present a

petition from slaves, has committed a gross contempt of this

House.

"2. That the member from Massachusetts above-named, by creating

the impression and leaving the House under such impression, that

the said petition was for the abolition of slavery, when he knew

that it was not, has trifled with the House.

"3. That the Hon. John Quincy Adams receive the censure of the

House for his conduct referred to in the preceding resolutions."

Mr. Pinckney said that the avowal by Mr. Adams that he had in his

possession the petition of slaves was an admission of communication

with slaves, and so was evidence of collusion with them; and that Mr.

Adams had thus rendered himself indictable for aiding and abetting (p. 275)

insurrection. A _fortiori_, then, was he not amenable to the censure

of the House? Mr. Haynes, of Georgia, forgetting that the petition had

not been presented, announced his intention of moving that it should

be rejected subject only to a permission for its withdrawal; another

member suggested that, if the petition should be disposed of by

burning, it would be well to commit to the same combustion the

gentleman who presented it.

On the next day some more resolutions were ready, prepared by

Dromgoole, who in his sober hours was regarded as the best

parliamentarian in the Southern party. These were, that Mr. Adams

"by stating in his place that he had in his possession a paper

purporting to be a petition from slaves, and inquiring if it came

within the meaning of a resolution heretofore adopted (as

preliminary to its presentation), has given color to the idea

that slaves have the right of petition and of his readiness to be

their organ; and that for the same he deserves the censure of the

House.

"That the aforesaid John Quincy Adams receive a censure from the

Speaker in the presence of the House of Representatives."

Mr. Alford, in advocating these resolutions, talked about "this awful

crisis of our beloved country." Mr. Robertson, though opposing (p. 276)

the resolutions, took pains "strongly to condemn ... the conduct of

the gentleman from Massachusetts." Mr. Adams's colleague, Mr. Lincoln,

spoke in his behalf, so also did Mr. Evans, of Maine; and Caleb

Cushing made a powerful speech upon his side. Otherwise than this Mr.

Adams was left to carry on the contest single-handed against the

numerous array of assailants, all incensed and many fairly savage. Yet

it is a striking proof of the dread in which even the united body of

hot-blooded Southerners stood of this hard fighter from the North,

that as the debate was drawing to a close, after they had all said

their say and just before his opportunity came for making his

elaborate speech of defence, they suddenly and opportunely became

ready to content themselves with a mild resolution, which condemned

generally the presentation of petitions from slaves, and, for the

disposal of this particular case, recited that Mr. Adams had "solemnly

disclaimed all design of doing anything disrespectful to the House,"

and had "avowed his intention not to offer to present" to the House

the petition of this kind held by him; that "therefore all further

proceedings in regard to his conduct do now cease." A sneaking effort

by Mr. Vanderpoel to close Mr. Adams's mouth by moving the (p. 277)

previous question involved too much cowardice to be carried; and so on

February 9 the sorely bated man was at last able to begin his final

speech. He conducted his defence with singular spirit and ability, but

at too great length to admit of even a sketch of what he said. He

claimed the right of petition for slaves, and established it so far as

argument can establish anything. He alleged that all he had done was

to ask a question of the Speaker, and if he was to be censured for so

doing, then how much more, he asked, was the Speaker deserving of

censure who had even put the same question to the House, and given as

his reason for so doing that it was not only of novel but of difficult

import! He repudiated the idea that any member of the House could be

held by a grand jury to respond for words spoken in debate, and

recommended the gentlemen who had indulged in such preposterous

threats "to study a little the first principles of civil liberty,"

excoriating them until they actually arose and tried to explain away

their own language. He cast infinite ridicule upon the unhappy

expression of Dromgoole, "giving color to an idea." Referring to the

difficulty which he encountered by reason of the variety and disorder

of the resolutions and charges against him with which "gentlemen from

the South had pounced down upon him like so many eagles upon a (p. 278)

dove,"--there was an exquisite sarcasm in the simile!--he said:

"When I take up one idea, before I can give color to the idea, it has

already changed its form and presents itself for consideration under

other colors.... What defence can be made against this new crime of

giving color to ideas?" As for trifling with the House by presenting a

petition which in the course of debate had become pretty well known

and acknowledged to be a hoax designed to lead Mr. Adams into a

position of embarrassment and danger, he disclaimed any such motive,

reminding members that he had given warning, when beginning to present

his petitions, that he was suspicious that some among them might not

be genuine.[10] But while denying all intention of trifling with the

House, he rejected the mercy extended to him in the last of the (p. 279)

long series of resolutions before that body. "I disclaim not," he

said, "any particle of what I have done, not a single word of what I

have said do I unsay; nay, I am ready to do and to say the same

to-morrow." He had no notion of aiding in making a loophole through

which his blundering enemies might escape, even though he himself

should be accorded the privilege of crawling through it with them. At

times during his speech "there was great agitation in the House," but

when he closed no one seemed ambitious to reply. His enemies had

learned anew a lesson, often taught to them before and often to be

impressed upon them again, that it was perilous to come to close

quarters with Mr. Adams. They gave up all idea of censuring him, and

were content to apply a very mild emollient to their own smarting

wounds in the shape of a resolution, to the effect that slaves did not

possess the right of petition secured by the Constitution to the

people of the United States.

[Footnote 10: Mr. Adams afterward said: "I believed

the petition signed by female names to be

genuine.... I had suspicions that the other,

purporting to be from slaves, came really from the

hand of a master who had prevailed on his slaves to

sign it, that they might have the appearance of

imploring the members from the North to cease

offering petitions for their emancipation, which

could have no other tendency than to aggravate

their servitude, and of being so impatient under

the operation of petitions in their favor as to

pray that the Northern members who should persist

in presenting them should be expelled." It was a

part of the prayer of the petition that Mr. Adams

should be expelled if he should continue to present

abolition petitions.]

In the winter of 1842-43 the questions arising out of the affair of

the Creole rendered the position then held by Mr. Adams at the head of

the House Committee on Foreign Affairs exceedingly distasteful to the

slave-holders. On January 21, 1842, a somewhat singular (p. 280)

manifestation of this feeling was made when Mr. Adams himself

presented a petition from Georgia praying for his removal from this

Chairmanship. Upon this he requested to be heard in his own behalf.

The Southern party, not sanguine of any advantage from debating the

matter, tried to lay it on the table. The petition was alleged by

Habersham, of Georgia, to be undoubtedly another hoax. But Mr. Adams,

loath to lose a good opportunity, still claimed to be heard on the

charges made against him by the "infamous slave-holders." Mr. Smith,

of Virginia, said that the House had lately given Mr. Adams leave to

defend himself against the charge of monomania, and asked whether he

was doing so. Some members cried "Yes! Yes!"; others shouted "No! he

is establishing the fact." The wrangling was at last brought to an end

by the Speaker's declaration, that the petition must lie over for the

present. But the scene had been only the prelude to one much longer,

fiercer, and more exciting. No sooner was the document thus

temporarily disposed of than Mr. Adams rose and presented the petition

of forty-five citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying the House

"immediately to adopt measures peaceably to dissolve the union of

these States," for the alleged cause of the incompatibility (p. 281)

between free and slave-holding communities. He moved "its reference to

a select committee, with instructions to report an answer to the

petitioners showing the reasons why the prayer of it ought not to be

granted."

In a moment the House was aflame with excitement. The numerous members

who hated Mr. Adams thought that at last he was experiencing the

divinely sent madness which foreruns destruction. Those who sought his

political annihilation felt that the appointed and glorious hour of

extinction had come; those who had writhed beneath the castigation of

his invective exulted in the near revenge. While one said that the

petition should never have been brought within the walls of the House,

and another wished to burn it in the presence of the members, Mr.

Gilmer, of Virginia, offered a resolution, that in presenting the

petition Mr. Adams "had justly incurred the censure of the House."

Some objection was made to this resolution as not being in order; but

Mr. Adams said that he hoped that it would be received and debated and

that an opportunity would be given him to speak in his own defence;

"especially as the gentleman from Virginia had thought proper to play

second fiddle to his colleague[11] from Accomac." Mr. Gilmer retorted

that he "played second fiddle to no man. He was no fiddler, but (p. 282)

was endeavoring to prevent the music of him who,

'In the space of one revolving moon,

Was statesman, poet, fiddler, and buffoon.'"

The resolution was then laid on the table. The House rose, and Mr.

Adams went home and noted in his Diary, "evening in meditation," for

which indeed he had abundant cause. On the following day Thomas F.

Marshall, of Kentucky, offered a substitute for Gilmer's resolution.

This new fulmination had been prepared in a caucus of forty members of

the slave-holding party, and was long and carefully framed. Its

preamble recited, in substance, that a petition to dissolve the Union,

proposing to Congress to destroy that which the several members had

solemnly and officially sworn to support, was a "high breach of

privilege, a contempt offered to this House, a direct proposition to

the Legislature and each member of it to commit perjury, and involving

necessarily in its execution and its consequences the destruction of

our country and the crime of high treason:" wherefore it was to be

resolved that Mr. Adams, in presenting a petition for dissolution, had

"offered the deepest indignity to the House" and "an insult to the

people;" that if "this outrage" should be "permitted to pass unrebuked

and unpunished" he would have "disgraced his country ... in the (p. 283)

eyes of the whole world;" that for this insult and this "wound at

the Constitution and existence of his country, the peace, the security

and liberty of the people of these States" he "might well be held to

merit expulsion from the national councils;" and that "the House deem

it an act of grace and mercy when they only inflict upon him their

severest censure;" that so much they must do "for the maintenance of

their own purity and dignity; for the rest they turned him over to his

own conscience and the indignation of all true American citizens."

[Footnote 11: Henry A. Wise.]

These resolutions were then advocated by Mr. Marshall at great length

and with extreme bitterness. Mr. Adams replied shortly, stating that

he should wish to make his full defence at a later stage of the

debate. Mr. Wise followed in a personal and acrimonious harangue; Mr.

Everett[12] gave some little assistance to Mr. Adams, and the House

again adjourned. The following day Wise continued his speech, very

elaborately. When he closed, Mr. Adams, who had "determined not to

interrupt him till he had discharged his full cargo of filthy invective,"

rose to "make a preliminary point." He questioned the right of the

House to entertain Marshall's resolutions since the preamble assumed

him to be guilty of the crimes of subornation of perjury and (p. 284)

treason, and the resolutions themselves censured him as if he had been

found guilty; whereas in fact he had not been tried upon these charges

and of course had not been convicted. If he was to be brought to trial

upon them he asserted his right to have the proceedings conducted

before a jury of his peers, and that the House was not a tribunal

having this authority. But if he was to be tried for contempt, for

which alone he could lawfully be tried by the House, still there were

an hundred members sitting on its benches who were morally

disqualified to judge him, who could not give him an impartial trial,

because they were prejudiced and the question was one "on which their

personal, pecuniary, and most sordid interests were at stake." Such

considerations, he said, ought to prevent many gentlemen from voting,

as Mr. Wise had avowed that they would prevent him. Here Wise

interrupted to disavow that he was influenced by any such reasons, but

rather, he said, by the "personal loathing, dread, and contempt I feel

for the man." Mr. Adams, continuing after this pleasant interjection,

admitted that he was in the power of the majority, who might try him

against law and condemn him against right if they would.

[Footnote 12: Horace Everett, of Vermont.]

"If they say they will try me, they must try me. If they (p. 285)

say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say

that in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain

and cast away their mercy; and I ask them if they will come to

such a trial and expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to go

to who will have something to say if this House expels me. Nor

will it be long before the gentlemen will see me here again."

Such was the fierce temper and indomitable courage of this inflexible

old man! He flung contempt in the face of those who had him wholly in

their power, and in the same breath in which he acknowledged that

power he dared them to use it. He charged Wise with the guilt of

innocent blood, in connection with certain transactions in a duel, and

exasperated that gentleman into crying out that the "charge made by

the gentleman from Massachusetts was as base and black a lie as the

traitor was base and black who uttered it." When he was asked by the

Speaker to put his point of order in writing,--his own request to the

like effect in another case having been refused shortly before,--he

tauntingly congratulated that gentleman "upon his discovery of the

expediency of having points of order reduced to writing--a favor which

he had repeatedly denied to me." When Mr. Wise was speaking, "I

interrupted him occasionally," says Mr. Adams, "sometimes to (p. 286)

provoke him into absurdity." As usual he was left to fight out his

desperate battle substantially single-handed. Only Mr. Everett

occasionally helped him a very little; while one or two others who

spoke against the resolutions were careful to explain that they felt

no personal good will towards Mr. Adams. But he faced the odds

courageously. It was no new thing for him to be pitted alone against a

"solid South." Outside the walls of the House he had some sympathy and

some assistance tendered him by individuals, among others by Rufus

Choate then in the Senate, and by his own colleagues from

Massachusetts. This support aided and cheered him somewhat, but could

not prevent substantially the whole burden of the labor and brunt of

the contest from bearing upon him alone. Among the external

manifestations of feeling, those of hostility were naturally largely

in the ascendant. The newspapers of Washington--the "Globe" and the

"National Intelligencer"--which reported the debates, daily filled

their columns with all the abuse and invective which was poured forth

against him, while they gave the most meagre statements, or none at

all, of what he said in his own defence. Among other amenities he

received from North Carolina an anonymous letter threatening him with

assassination, having also an engraved portrait of him with the (p. 287)

mark of a rifle-ball in the forehead, and the motto "to stop the

music of John Quincy Adams," etc., etc. This missive he read and

displayed in the House, but it was received with profound indifference

by men who would not have greatly objected to the execution of the

barbarous threat.

The prolonged struggle cost him deep anxiety and sleepless nights,

which in the declining years of a laborious life told hardly upon his

aged frame. But against all odds of numbers and under all

disadvantages of circumstances the past repeated itself, and Mr. Adams

alone won a victory over all the cohorts of the South. Several

attempts had been made during the debate to lay the whole subject on

the table. Mr. Adams said that he would consent to this simply because

his defence would be a very long affair, and he did not wish to have

the time of the House consumed and the business of the nation brought

to a stand solely for the consideration of his personal affairs. These

propositions failing, he began his speech and soon was making such

headway that even his adversaries were constrained to see that the

opportunity which they had conceived to be within their grasp was

eluding them, as had so often happened before. Accordingly on February

7 the motion to "lay the whole subject on the table forever" was (p. 288)

renewed and carried by one hundred and six votes to ninety-three.

The House then took up the original petition and refused to receive it

by one hundred and sixty-six to forty. No sooner was this consummation

reached than the irrepressible champion rose to his feet and proceeded

with his budget of anti-slavery petitions, of which he "presented

nearly two hundred, till the House adjourned."

Within a very short time there came further and convincing proof that

Mr. Adams was victor. On February 26 he writes: "D. D. Barnard told me

he had received a petition from his District, signed by a small number

of very respectable persons, praying for a dissolution of the Union.

He said he did not know what to do with it. I dined with him." By

March 14 this dinner bore fruit. Mr. Barnard had made up his mind

"what to do with it." He presented it, with a motion that it be

referred to a select committee with instructions to report adversely

to its prayer. The well-schooled House now took the presentation

without a ripple of excitement, and was content with simply voting not

to receive the petition.

In the midst of the toil and anxiety imposed upon Mr. Adams by this

effort to censure and disgrace him, the scheme, already referred to,

for displacing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on (p. 289)

Foreign Affairs had been actively prosecuted. He was notified that the

Southern members had formed a cabal for removing him and putting Caleb

Cushing in his place. The plan was, however, temporarily checked, and

so soon as Mr. Adams had triumphed in the House the four Southern

members of the committee sent to the House a paper begging to be

excused from further services on the committee, "because from recent

occurrences it was doubtful whether the House would remove the

chairman, and they were unwilling to serve with one in whom they had

no confidence." The fugitives were granted, "by a shout of

acclamation," the excuse which they sought for so welcome a reason,

and the same was also done for a fifth member. Three more of the same

party, nominated to fill these vacancies, likewise asked to be

excused, and were so. Their letters preferring this request were "so

insulting personally" to Mr. Adams as to constitute "gross breaches of

privilege." "The Speaker would have refused to receive or present them

had they referred to any other man in the House." They were published,

but Mr. Adams, after some hesitation, determined not to give them the

importance which would result from any public notice in the House upon

his part. He could afford to keep silence, and judged wisely in doing

so.

Amid all the animosity and rancor entertained towards Mr. Adams, (p. 290)

there yet lurked a degree of respect for his courage, honesty, and

ability which showed itself upon occasion, doubtless not a little to

the surprise of the members themselves who were hardly conscious that

they entertained such sentiments until startled into a manifestation

of them. An eminent instance of this is to be found in the story of

the troubled days preceding the organization of the twenty-sixth

Congress. On December 2, 1839, the members elect of that body came

together in Washington, with the knowledge that the seats of five

gentlemen from New Jersey, who brought with them the regular

gubernatorial certificate of their election, would be contested by

five other claimants. According to custom Garland, clerk of the last

House, called the assemblage to order and began the roll-call. When he

came to New Jersey he called the name of one member from that State,

and then said that there were five other seats which were contested,

and that not feeling authorized to decide the dispute he would pass

over the names of the New Jersey members and proceed with the roll

till the House should be formed, when the question could be decided.

Plausible as appeared this abstention from an exercise of authority in

so grave a dispute, it was nevertheless really an assumption and (p. 291)

not a deprecation of power, and as such was altogether unjustifiable.

The clerk's sole business was to call the names of those persons who

presented the usual formal credentials; he had no right to take

cognizance that the seats of any such persons might be the subject of

a contest, which could properly be instituted, conducted, and

determined only before and by the House itself when organized. But his

course was not innocent of a purpose. So evenly was the House divided

that the admission or exclusion of these five members in the first

instance would determine the political complexion of the body. The

members holding the certificates were Whigs; if the clerk could keep

them out until the organization of the House should be completed, then

the Democrats would control that organization, would elect their

Speaker, and through him would make up the committees.

[Illustration: Henry A. Wise]

Naturally enough this arrogation of power by the clerk, the motives

and consequences of which were abundantly obvious, raised a terrible

storm. The debate continued till four o'clock in the afternoon, when a

motion was made to adjourn. The clerk said that he could put no

question, not even of adjournment, till the House should be formed.

But there was a general cry to adjourn, and the clerk declared the

House adjourned. Mr. Adams went home and wrote in his Diary that (p. 292)

the clerk's "two decisions form together an insurmountable objection

to the transaction of any business, and an impossibility of organizing

the House.... The most curious part of the case is, that his own

election as clerk depends upon the exclusion of the New Jersey

members." The next day was consumed in a fierce debate as to whether

the clerk should be allowed to read an explanatory statement. Again

the clerk refused to put the question of adjournment, but, "upon

inspection," declared an adjournment. Some called out "a count! a

count!" while most rushed out of the hall, and Wise cried loudly, "Now

we are a mob!" The next day there was more violent debating, but no

progress towards a decision. Various party leaders offered

resolutions, none of which accomplished anything. The condition was

ridiculous, disgraceful, and not without serious possibilities of

danger. Neither did any light of encouragement break in any quarter.

In the crisis there seemed, by sudden consent of all, to be a turning

towards Mr. Adams. Prominent men of both parties came to him and

begged him to interfere. He was reluctant to plunge into the

embroilment; but the great urgency and the abundant assurances of

support placed little less than actual compulsion upon him.

Accordingly on December 5 he rose to address the House. He was (p. 293)

greeted as a _Deus ex machina_. Not speaking to the clerk, but turning

directly to the assembled members, he began: "Fellow citizens! Members

elect of the twenty-sixth Congress!" He could not resist the temptation

of administering a brief but severe and righteous castigation to

Garland; and then, ignoring that functionary altogether, proceeded to

beg the House to _organize itself_. To this end he said that he would

offer a resolution "ordering the clerk to call the members from New

Jersey possessing the credentials from the Governor of that State."

There had been already no lack of resolutions, but the difficulty lay

in the clerk's obstinate refusal to put the question upon them. So now

the puzzled cry went up: "How shall the question be put?" "I intend to

put the question myself," said the dauntless old man, wholly equal to

the emergency. A tumult of applause resounded upon all sides. Rhett,

of South Carolina, sprang up and offered a resolution, that Williams,

of North Carolina, the oldest member of the House, be appointed

chairman of the meeting; but upon objection by Williams, he

substituted the name of Mr. Adams, and put the question. He was

"answered by an almost universal shout in the affirmative." Whereupon

Rhett and Williams conducted the old man to the chair. It was a (p. 294)

proud moment. Wise, of Virginia, afterward said, addressing a

complimentary speech to Mr. Adams, "and if, when you shall be gathered

to your fathers, I were asked to select the words which in my judgment

are calculated to give at once the best character of the man, I would

inscribe upon your tomb this sentence, 'I will put the question

myself!'" Doubtless Wise and a good many more would have been glad

enough to put almost any epitaph on a tombstone for Mr. Adams.[13] It

must, however, be acknowledged that the impetuous Southerners behaved

very handsomely by their arch foe on this occasion, and were for once

as chivalrous in fact as they always were in profession.

[Footnote 13: Not quite two years later, pending a

motion to reprimand Mr. Wise for fighting with a

member on the floor of the House, that gentleman

took pains insultingly to say, "that there was but

one man in the House whose judgment he was

unwilling to abide by," and that man was Mr.

Adams.]

Smooth water had by no means been reached when Mr. Adams was placed at

the helm; on the contrary, the buffeting became only the more severe

when the members were no longer restrained by a lurking dread of grave

disaster if not of utter shipwreck. Between two bitterly incensed and

evenly divided parties engaged in a struggle for an important prize,

Mr. Adams, having no strictly lawful authority pertaining to (p. 295)

his singular and anomalous position, was hard taxed to perform his

functions. It is impossible to follow the intricate and acrimonious

quarrels of the eleven days which succeeded until on December 16, upon

the eleventh ballot, R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, was elected Speaker,

and Mr. Adams was relieved from the most arduous duty imposed upon him

during his life. In the course of the debates there had been "much

vituperation and much equally unacceptable compliment" lavished upon

him. After the organization of the House, there was some talk of

moving a vote of thanks, but he entreated that it should not be done.

"In the rancorous and bitter temper of the Administration party,

exasperated by their disappointment in losing their Speaker, the

resolution of thanks," he said, "would have been lost if it had been

offered." However this might have been, history has determined this

occurrence to have been one of the most brilliant episodes in a life

which had many distinctions.

A few incidents indicative of respect must have been welcome enough in

the solitary fight-laden career of Mr. Adams. He needed some

occasional encouragement to keep him from sinking into despondency;

for though he was of so unyielding and belligerent a disposition, of

such ungracious demeanor, so uncompromising with friend and foe, (p. 296)

yet he was a man of deep and strong feelings, and in a way even

very sensitive though a proud reserve kept the secret of this quality

so close that few suspected it. His Diary during his Congressional

life shows a man doing his duty sternly rather than cheerfully,

treading resolutely a painful path, having the reward which attends

upon a clear conscience, but neither light-hearted nor often even

happy. Especially he was frequently disappointed at the returns which

he received from others, and considered himself "ill-treated by every

public man whom circumstances had brought into competition with him;"

they had returned his "acts of kindness and services" with "gross

injustice." The reflection did not induce him to deflect his course in

the least, but it was made with much bitterness of spirit. Toward the

close of 1835 he writes:--

"Among the dark spots in human nature which in the course of my

life I have observed, the devices of rivals to ruin me have been

sorry pictures of the heart of man.... H. G. Otis, Theophilus

Parsons, Timothy Pickering, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan

Russell, William H. Crawford, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson,

Daniel Webster, and John Davis, W. B. Giles, and John Randolph,

have used up their faculties in base and dirty tricks to thwart

my progress in life and destroy my character."

Truly a long and exhaustive list of enmities! One can but suspect (p. 297)

that a man of so many quarrels must have been quarrelsome. Certain it

is, however, that in nearly every difference which Mr. Adams had in

his life a question of right and wrong, of moral or political

principle, had presented itself to him. His intention was always good,

though his manner was so habitually irritating. He himself says that

to nearly all these men--Russell alone specifically excepted--he had

"returned good for evil," that he had "never wronged any one of them,"

and had even "neglected too much his self-defence against them." In

October, 1833, he said: "I subject myself to so much toil and so much

enmity, with so very little apparent fruit, that I sometimes ask

myself whether I do not mistake my own motives. The best actions of my

life make me nothing but enemies." In February, 1841, he made a

powerful speech in castigation of Henry A. Wise, who had been

upholding in Southern fashion slavery, duelling, and nullification. He

received afterward some messages of praise and sympathy, but noted

with pain that his colleagues thought it one of his "eccentric, wild,

extravagant freaks of passion;" and with a pathetic sense of

loneliness he adds: "All around me is cold and discouraging and my own

feelings are wound up to a pitch that my reason can scarcely (p. 298)

endure." A few days later he had the pleasure of hearing one of the

members say, in a speech, that there was an opinion among many that

Mr. Adams was insane and did not know what he said. While a fight was

going on such incidents only fired his blood, but afterwards the

reminiscence affected his spirits cruelly.

In August, 1840, he writes that he has been twelve years submitting in

silence to the "foulest and basest aspersions," to which it would have

been waste of time to make reply, since the public ear had not been

open to him. "Is the time arriving," he asks, "for me to speak? or

must I go down to the grave and leave posterity to do justice to my

father and to me?"

He has had at least the advantage of saying his say to posterity in a

very effective and convincing shape in that Diary, which so discomfited

and enraged General Jackson. There is plain enough speaking in its

pages, which were a safety valve whereby much wrath escaped. Mr. Adams

had the faculty of forcible expression when he chose to employ it, as

may be seen from a few specimen sentences. On March 28, 1840, he

remarks that Atherton "this day emitted half an hour of his rotten

breath against" a pending bill. Atherton was infamous as the mover of

the "gag" resolution, and Mr. Adams abhorred him accordingly. (p. 299)

Duncan, of Cincinnati, mentioned as "delivering a dose of balderdash,"

is described as "the prime bully of the Kinderhook Democracy," without

"perception of any moral distinction between truth and falsehood, ...

a thorough-going hack-demagogue, coarse, vulgar, and impudent, with a

vein of low humor exactly suited to the rabble of a popular city and

equally so to the taste of the present House of Representatives."

Other similar bits of that pessimism and belief in the deterioration

of the times, so common in old men, occasionally appear. In August,

1835, he thinks that "the signs of the times are portentous. All the

tendencies of legislation are to the removal of restrictions from the

vicious and the guilty, and to the exercise of all the powers of

government, legislative, judicial, and executive, by lawless

assemblages of individuals." December 27, 1838, he looks upon the

Senate and the House, "the cream of the land, the culled darlings of

fifteen millions," and observes that "the remarkable phenomenon that

they present is the level of intellect and of morals upon which they

stand; and this universal mediocrity is the basis upon which the

liberties of this nation repose." In July, 1840, he thinks that

"parties are falling into profligate factions. I have seen this

before; but the worst symptom now is the change in the (p. 300)

manners of the people. The continuance of the present Administration

... will open wide all the flood-gates of corruption. Will a change

produce reform? Pause and ponder! Slavery, the Indians, the public

lands, the collection and disbursement of public money, the tariff,

and foreign affairs:--what is to become of them?"

On January 29, 1841, Henry A. Wise uttered "a motley compound of

eloquence and folly, of braggart impudence and childish vanity, of

self-laudation and Virginian narrow-mindedness." After him Hubbard, of

Alabama, "began grunting against the tariff." Three days later Black,

of Georgia, "poured forth his black bile" for an hour and a half. The

next week we find Clifford, of Maine, "muddily bothering his trickster

invention" to get over a rule of the House, and "snapping like a

mackerel at a red rag" at the suggestion of a way to do so. In July,

1841, we again hear of Atherton as a "cross-grained numskull ...

snarling against the loan bill." With such peppery passages in great

abundance the Diary is thickly and piquantly besprinkled. They are not

always pleasant, perhaps not even always amusing, but they display the

marked element of censoriousness in Mr. Adams's character, which it is

necessary to appreciate in order to understand some parts of his

career.

If Mr. Adams never had the cheerful support of popularity, so (p. 301)

neither did he often have the encouragement of success. He said that

he was paying in his declining years for the good luck which had

attended the earlier portion of his life. On December 14, 1833, he

calculates that he has three fourths of the people of Massachusetts

against him, and by estranging the anti-Masons he is about to become

obnoxious to the whole. "My public life will terminate by the

alienation from me of all mankind.... It is the experience of all ages

that the people grow weary of old men. I cannot flatter myself that I

shall escape the common law of our nature." Yet he acknowledges that

he is unable to "abstract himself from the great questions which

agitate the country." Soon after he again writes in the same vein: "To

be forsaken by all mankind seems to be the destiny that awaits my last

days." August 6, 1835, he gives as his reason for not accepting an

invitation to deliver a discourse, that "instead of having any

beneficial influence upon the public mind, it would be turned as an

instrument of obloquy against myself." So it had been, as he enumerates,

with his exertions against Freemasonry, his labors for internal

improvement, for the manufacturing interest, for domestic industry,

for free labor, for the disinterested aid then lately brought (p. 302)

by him to Jackson in the dispute with France; "so it will be to the

end of my political life."

When to unpopularity and reiterated disappointment we add the physical

ills of old age, it no longer surprises us to find Mr. Adams at times

harsh and bitter beyond the excuse of the occasion. That he was a man

of strong physique and of extraordinary powers of endurance, often

surpassing those of young and vigorous men, is evident. For example,

one day in March, 1840, he notes incidentally: "I walked home and

found my family at dinner. From my breakfast yesterday morning until

one this afternoon, twenty-eight hours, I had fasted." Many a time he

showed like, if not quite equal vigor. But he had been a hard worker

all his life, and testing the powers of one's constitution does not

tend to their preservation; he was by no means free from the woes of

the flesh or from the depression which comes with years and the dread

of decrepitude. Already as early as October 7, 1833, he fears that his

health is "irretrievable;" he gets but five hours a night of

"disturbed unquiet sleep--full of tossings." February 17, 1834, his

"voice was so hoarse and feeble that it broke repeatedly, and he could

scarcely articulate. It is gone forever," he very mistakenly but

despondingly adds, "and it is in vain for me to contend against (p. 303)

the decay of time and nature." His enemies found little truth in this

foreboding for many sessions thereafter. Only a year after he had

performed his feat of fasting for twenty-eight hours of business, he

received a letter from a stranger advising him to retire. He admits

that perhaps he ought to do so, but says that more than sixty years of

public life have made activity necessary to him; it is the "weakness

of his nature" which he has "intellect enough left to perceive but not

energy to control," so that "the world will retire from me before I

shall retire from the world."

The brief sketch which can be given in a volume of this size of so

long and so busy a life does not suffice even to indicate all its many

industries. The anti-slavery labors of Mr. Adams during his Congressional

career were alone an abundant occupation for a man in the prime of

life; but to these he added a wonderful list of other toils and

interests. He was not only an incessant student in history, politics,

and literature, but he also constantly invaded the domain of science.

He was Chairman of the Congressional Committee on the Smithsonian

bequest, and for several years he gave much time and attention to it,

striving to give the fund a direction in favor of science; he (p. 304)

hoped to make it subservient to a plan which he had long cherished for

the building of a noble national observatory. He had much committee

work; he received many visitors; he secured hours of leisure for his

favorite pursuit of composing poetry; he delivered an enormous number

of addresses and speeches upon all sorts of occasions; he conducted an

extensive correspondence; he was a very devout man, regularly going to

church and reading three chapters in his Bible every day; and he kept

up faithfully his colossal Diary. For several months in the midst of

Congressional duties he devoted great labor, thought, and anxiety to

the famous cause of the slaves of the Amistad, in which he was induced

to act as counsel before the Supreme Court. Such were the labors of

his declining age. To men of ordinary calibre the multiplicity of his

acquirements and achievements is confounding and incredible. He worked

his brain and his body as unsparingly as if they had been machines

insensible to the pleasure or necessity of rest. Surprisingly did they

submit to his exacting treatment, lasting in good order and condition

far beyond what was then the average of life and vigorous faculties

among his contemporaries engaged in public affairs.

In August, 1842, while he was still tarrying in the unwholesome (p. 305)

heats of Washington, he had some symptoms which he thought premonitory,

and he speaks of the next session of Congress as probably the last

which he should ever attend. March 25, 1844, he gives a painful sketch

of himself. Physical disability, he says, must soon put a stop to his

Diary. That morning he had risen "at four, and with smarting,

bloodshot eyes and shivering hand, still sat down and wrote to fill up

the chasm of the closing days of last week." If his remaining days

were to be few he was at least resolved to make them long for purposes

of unremitted labor.