In 1837 Isaac Knapp printed Letters from John Quincy Adams to his
Constituents of the Twelfth Congressional District in Massachusetts,
to which is added his Speech in Congress, delivered February 9,
1837, and the following stood as an introduction to the pamphlet.
THE following letters have been published, within a few weeks, in the
Quincy (Mass.) 'Patriot'. Notwithstanding the great importance of the
subjects which they discuss, the intense interest which they are
calculated to awaken throughout this commonwealth and the whole country,
and the exalted reputation of their author as a profound statesman and
powerful writer, they are as yet hardly known beyond the limits of the
constituency to whom they are particularly addressed. The reason of this
is sufficiently obvious. John Quincy Adams belongs to neither of the
prominent political parties, fights no partisan battles, and cannot be
prevailed upon to sacrifice truth and principle upon the altar of party
expediency and interest. Hence neither party is interested in defending
his course, or in giving him an opportunity to defend himself. But
however systematic may be the efforts of mere partisan presses to
suppress and hold back from the public eye the powerful and triumphant
vindication of the Right of Petition, the graphic delineation of the
slavery spirit in Congress, and the humbling disclosure of Northern
cowardice and treachery, contained in these letters, they are destined to
exert a powerful influence upon the public mind. They will constitute
one of the most striking pages in the history of our times. They will be
read with avidity in the North and in the South, and throughout Europe.
Apart from the interest excited by the subjects under discussion, and
viewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked among the highest
intellectual efforts of their author. Their sarcasm is Junius-like,--
cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal,
they will bear comparison with O'Connell's celebrated 'Letters to the
Reformers of Great Britain'. They are the offspring of an intellect
unshorn of its primal strength, and combining the ardor of youth with the
experience of age.
The disclosure made in these letters of the slavery influence exerted in
Congress over the representatives of the free states, of the manner in
which the rights of freemen have been bartered for Southern votes, or
basely yielded to the threats of men educated in despotism, and stamped
by the free indulgence of unrestrained tyranny with the "odious
peculiarities" of slavery, is painful and humiliating in the extreme. It
will be seen that, in the great struggle for and against the Right of
Petition, an account of which is given in the following pages, their
author stood, in a great measure, alone and unsupported by his Northern
colleagues. On his "gray, discrowned head" the entire fury of slave-
holding arrogance and wrath was expended. He stood alone, beating back,
with his aged and single arm, the tide which would have borne down and
overwhelmed a less sturdy and determined spirit.
We need not solicit for these letters, and the speech which accompanies
them, a thorough perusal. They deserve, and we trust will receive, a
circulation throughout the entire country. They will meet a cordial
welcome from every lover of human liberty, from every friend of justice
and the rights of man, irrespective of color or condition. The
principles which they defend, the sentiments which they express, are
those of Massachusetts, as recently asserted, almost unanimously, by her
legislature. In both branches of that body, during the discussion of the
subject of slavery and the right of petition, the course of the ex-
President was warmly and eloquently commended. Massachusetts will
sustain her tried and faithful representative; and the time is not far
distant when the best and worthiest citizens of the entire North will
proffer him their thanks for his noble defence of their rights as
freemen, and of the rights of the slave as a man.