INFLUENCE OF MILITARY SUCCESS.--POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.--MR.
ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS FROM THE BANK OF THE UNITED
STATES.--HIS OPINIONS ON FREEMASONRY AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.--EULOGY
ON WILLIAM WIRT.--ORATION ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF LAFAYETTE.--HIS
COURSE ON ABOLITION PETITIONS.--ON INTERFERENCE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF
SLAVERY.--ON THE POLICY RELATIVE TO THE PUBLIC LANDS.--SPEECH ON
DISTRIBUTING RATIONS TO FUGITIVES FROM INDIAN HOSTILITIES.--ON WAR WITH
MEXICO.--EULOGY ON JAMES MADISON.--HIS COURSE ON A PETITION PURPORTING
TO BE FROM SLAVES.--FIRST REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.
On the 4th of March, 1833, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated President of
the United States a second time. Of two hundred and eighty-eight votes,
the whole number cast by the electors, he had received two hundred and
nineteen, Henry Clay being the chief opposing candidate. Martin Van
Buren, having been elected Vice-President by one hundred and eighty-nine
votes, was inaugurated on the same day. The coalition formed in 1827 by
Jackson with Van Buren had thus fulfilled its purpose. Jackson's triumph
was complete; he had superseded Adams, defeated Clay, crushed Calhoun,
and placed Van Buren in the most auspicious position to be his successor
in the President's chair.
The infatuating influence of military success over the human mind, and
the readiness with which intelligent and well-disposed men, living under
a constitution of limited powers, while dazzled by its splendor, endure
and encourage acts of despotic power, is at once instructive and
suggestive. Violations of constitutional duty, known and voluntarily
acquiesced in by a whole people, subservient to the will of a popular
chieftain, may, and probably will, in time, change their constitution,
and destroy their liberties.
When Mr. Adams said that "Jackson rode roughshod over the Senate of the
United States," he only characterized the spirit by which he controlled
every branch and department of the government. In every movement Jackson
had displayed an arbitrary will, determined on success, regardless of
the means, and had applied without reserve the corrupting temptation of
office to members of Congress. He had rewarded subserviency by
appointments, and punished the want of it by removal; had insolently
called Calhoun to account for his official language in the cabinet of
Monroe, and dismissed three members of his own, acknowledged to have
been unexceptionable in the discharge of their official duties, because
they would not submit to regulate the social intercourse of their
families by his dictation. These and many other instances of his
overbearing character in civil affairs had become subjects of severe
public animadversion, without apparently shaking the submissive
confidence of the citizens of the United States. Their votes on his
second election indicated an unequivocal increase of popular favor; the
admirer of arbitrary power exulted; the lover of constitutional liberty
mourned. The friends of despotism in the Old World, ignorant of the real
stamina of his popularity, regarded it as unquestionable evidence of the
all-powerful influence of military achievement in the New. But the
infatuation which had been the exciting cause of General Jackson's first
election to the Presidency would soon have evaporated under the
multiplied evidences of an ill-regulated will, had it not been
encouraged and supported by a local interest which predominated in the
councils of the nation. With no desire to establish arbitrary power in
the person of the chief magistrate of the Union, the slave-holders of
the South instinctively perceived the identity of Jackson's interests
with their own, and gave zeal and intensity to his support. The
acquisition of the province of Texas, and its introduction into the
Union as a slave state, with the prospective design of forming out of
its territories four or five slave states, was a project in which they
knew Jackson's heart was deeply engaged, and for the advancement of
which he had peculiar qualifications.
Such was the true basis of that extraordinary show of popularity which
Jackson's second election as President indicated. Accordingly, his first
measures were directed to the acquisition of Texas. These, as Mr. Adams
said at the time, "were kept profoundly secret," but at this day they
are clear and evident. The Florida treaty was accepted with approbation
and joy by the government and people of the United States, under the
administration of Mr. Monroe. But the extension of its boundaries to the
Colorado, which had been hoped for during the negotiation of that treaty
between Mr. Adams and Onis, was not attained. Afterwards, during the
Presidency of Mr. Adams, when every engine in the South and West was set
at work to depreciate his character, and destroy his popularity, John
Floyd, of Virginia, in an address to his constituents, attributed the
relinquishment of our claim to Texas to him, and said he had thus
deprived the South of acquiring two or more slave states. The same
charge was brought against him by Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, who
afterwards, when apprized of the facts, openly acknowledged, in the
Senate of the United States, that it was unjust, and an error. The
calumny had the effect for which it was fabricated; for Mr. Adams, out
of respect for those through whose constitutional influence he had
abandoned that claim, disdained to defend himself by publishing the
truth.
The facts were, that slavery not being then permitted in Mexico, and the
project of introducing it, by the annexation of Texas, not being yet
developed, Mr. Adams deemed the extension of the territory of the United
States to the Colorado so important, that when Onis absolutely refused
to accede, he declined further negotiation, declaring that he would not
renew it on any other ground. He did not yield until those deeply
interested in obtaining Florida had, by their urgency, persuaded him to
treat on the condition of not including Texas. Although desirous, from
general considerations of national interest and policy, to obtain that
province, it was well known that he would not engage in any conspiracy
to wrest it from Mexico. His character and firmness in that respect
lessened his popularity in the Southern States, and excited an
inordinate zeal for Jackson.
Accordingly, Mr. Poinsett, of South Carolina, minister of the United
States in Mexico, immediately after the inauguration of President
Jackson, in 1829, being apprized of his views and policy, took measures
to carry them into effect. Under pretence of negotiating for the
purchase of Texas, he remained in Mexico, and so mingled with the
parties which at the time distracted that republic as to become
obnoxious to its government. The Legislature passed a vote to expel
him from their territories, and issued a remonstrance intimating
apprehensions of his assassination if he continued there; charging him
expressly with being concerned in establishing "some of those secret
societies which will figure in the history of the misfortunes of
Mexico." It might have been expected that a foreign minister would
have repelled such an accusation with indignation. Poinsett, on the
contrary, in a letter[1] addressed to the public, admitted that he
had been instrumental in establishing _five_ such secret societies,
but asserted that they were only lodges of Freemasons,--merely
philanthropic institutions, which had nothing to do with politics.
For the truth of these assertions he appealed to his own personal
character, and to the character of the members of the secret societies,
who, he declared, had been his intimate friends for more than three
years, vouching himself for their patriotism and private virtues. Even
this authentication did not create implicit belief in the minds of
those to whom it was addressed.
[1] See this letter in _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XXXVII.,
pp. 91-93.
During these proceedings of Poinsett in Mexico the newspapers in the
United States announced that the American government were taking proper
steps for the acquisition of Texas. Intimations were also circulated of
the sum Poinsett had been authorized to offer for it; and, to make sure
of its ultimate attainment, in the summer and autumn of 1829 emigrants
from the United States were encouraged by the American government to
settle in Texas. To the Southern States the acquisition of that province
was desirable, to open a new area for slavery. In open defiance,
therefore, of a formal decree about this time issued by the rulers of
Mexico prohibiting slavery in Texas, the emigrants to that province took
their slaves with them; for they knew that the object of the American
government was not so much territory as a slave state, and that upon
their effecting this result their admission into the Union would depend.
Such was the policy commenced and pursued during the first term of
Jackson's administration. It was the conviction of this which led Mr.
Adams publicly to declare that, though "profoundly a secret as it
respected the public, it was then in successful progress;" and to make
it a topic of severe animadversion and warning, combined with language
of prophecy, which events soon expanded into history. Every movement of
Jackson was in unison with the policy and imbued with the spirit of the
slaveholders. He manifested animosity to the protection of manufactures,
and to internal improvement by his veto of the bill for the Maysville
Turnpike, and to the Bank of the United States by his veto of the bill
for extending its charter; and, after violently denouncing the spirit of
nullification, he publicly succumbed to it by proposing a modification
of the tariff, in obedience to its demands. But the most flagrant, act,
and beyond all others characteristic of his indomitable tenacity of
will, overleaping all the limitations of precedent and the constitution,
was his removal, on his own responsibility, of the deposits from the
Bank of the United States. After ascertaining that Duane, the Secretary
of the Treasury, would not be his tool in that service, he, in the
language of that officer, "concentrating in himself the power to judge
and execute, to absorb the discretion given to the Secretary of the
Treasury, and to nullify the law itself," proceeded at once to remove
him, and to raise Roger B. Taney from the office of Attorney-General to
that of Secretary of the Treasury, for the sole object of availing
himself of an instrument subservient to his purposes.
In his annual message, at the opening of the session, Jackson announced
to Congress that the Secretary of the Treasury had, by his orders,
removed the public moneys from the Bank of the United States, and
deposited them in certain state banks.
The spirit of Mr. Adams kindled at this usurpation, and he gave
eloquent utterance to his indignation. Among the remonstrances to
Congress against this act of President Jackson, one from the
Legislature of Massachusetts was sent to him for presentation. In his
attempt to fulfil this duty he was defeated three several times by the
address of the Speaker of the House, and finally deprived of the
opportunity by the previous question. He immediately published the
speech he had intended to deliver, minutely scrutinizing the
President's usurpation of power. The removal of the deposits, and the
contract with the state banks to receive those deposits, he asserts
were both unlawful; and the measure itself neither lawful nor just--an
arbitrary act, without law and against law. He then proceeds to analyze
the whole series of documents adduced by the Secretary of the Treasury,
and by the Committee of Ways and Means in his aid, as _precedents_ to
justify the removal of the deposits, and concludes a lucid and
laborious argument with, "I have thus proved, to the very rigor of
mathematical demonstration, that the Committee of Ways and Means, to
bolster up the lawless act of the Secretary of the Treasury, in
transferring public moneys from their lawful places of deposit to
others, in one of which, at least, the Secretary had an interest of
private profit to himself, have ransacked all the records of the
Treasury, from its first institution in July, 1775, to this day, in
vain. From the whole mass of vouchers, to authenticate the lawful
disposal of the public moneys, which that department can furnish, the
committee have gathered fifty pages of documents, which they would pass
off as _precedents_ for this flagrant violation of the laws, and not
one of them will answer their purpose. One of them alone bears a
partial resemblance to the act of the present secretary; and that one
the very document adduced by the committee themselves pronounces and
proves to be unlawful."
After some remarks upon the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and
the legal restraints upon it, he proceeds: "I believe both the spirit
and the letter of this law to have been violated by the present
Secretary of the Treasury when he transferred the public funds from the
Bank of the United States to the Union Bank of Baltimore, he himself
being a stockholder therein. And so thorough is my conviction of this
principle, and so corrupting and pernicious do I deem the example which
he has thereby set to future Committees of Ways and Means, to cite as
_precedents_ for yet ranker rottenness, that, if there were a prospect
of his remaining in office longer than till the close of the present
session of the Senate, I should deem it an indispensable, albeit a
painful, duty of my station, to take the sense of this house on the
question. And, sir, if, after this explicit declaration by me, the
chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has not yet slaked his
thirst for _precedents_, he may gratify it by offering a fifth
resolution, in addition to the four reported by the committee, as thus:
Resolved, that the thanks of this house be given to Roger B. Taney,
Secretary of the Treasury, for his pure and DISINTERESTED patriotism in
transferring the use of the public funds from the Bank of the United
States, where they were profitable to the people, to the Union Bank of
Baltimore, where they were profitable to himself."
He then proceeds to show, in a severe and searching examination of
the proceedings of this secretary, that the transfers were utterly
unwarrantable; that he _tampered_ with the public moneys to sustain the
staggering credit of selected depositaries, and "scatter it abroad
among swarms of rapacious political partisans." After stating and
answering all the charges brought by the Secretary of the Treasury
against the Bank of the United States, and showing their falsehood or
futility, he declares all the proceedings of the directors of the
bank to have been within the pale of action warranted by the laws of
the land; and, so long as they do this, "a charge of dishonesty or
corruption against them, uttered by the President of the United States,
or by the Secretary of the Treasury, is neither more nor less than
slander, emitted under the protection of official station, against
private citizens. This is both ungenerous and unjust. It is the abuse
of the shelter of official station to circulate calumny with impunity."
Mr. Adams next examines and severely reprobates the declaration of
the President of the United States, that, "if the last Congress had
continued in session one week longer, the bank would, by corrupt means,
have procured a re-charter by majorities of two thirds in both houses
of Congress;" and declares the imputation as unjust as it was
dishonorable to all the parties implicated in it. He did not believe
there was _one_ member in the last Congress, who voted against
re-chartering of the bank, who could have been induced to change his
vote by corrupt means, had the president and directors of the bank been
base enough to attempt the use of them. "That the imputation is cruelly
ungenerous towards the friends of the administration in this house,
is," said Mr. Adams, "my deliberate opinion; and now, when we reflect
that this defamatory and disgraceful suspicion, harbored or professed
against his own friends, supporters, and adherents, was the real and
efficient _cause_ (to call it reason would be to _shame_ the term),
that it was the real _motive_ for the removal of the deposits during
the recess of Congress, and only two months before its meeting, what
can we do but hide our heads with _shame_? Sir, one of the duties of
the President of the United States--a duty as sacred as that to which
he is bound by his official oath--is that of maintaining unsullied
the honor of his country. But how could the President of the United
States assert, in the presence of any foreigner, a claim to honorable
principle or moral virtue, as attributes belonging to his countrymen,
when he is the first to cast the indelible stigma upon them? '_Vale,
venalis civitas, mox peritura, si emptorem invenias_,' was the
prophetic curse of Jugurtha upon Rome, in the days of her deep
corruption. If the imputations of the President of the United States
upon his own partisans and supporters were true, our country would
already have found a purchaser."
"That this was the true and efficient _cause_," Mr. Adams proceeds,
"of that removal, is evident, not only by the positive testimony of Mr.
Duane, but from the utter futility of the reasons assigned by Mr. Taney.
Mr. Duane states that, on the second day after he entered upon his
duties as Secretary of the Treasury, the President himself declared to
him his determination to cause the public deposits to be removed before
the meeting of Congress. He said that the matter under consideration was
of vast consequence to the country; that, unless the bank was broken
down, it would break us down; that, if the last Congress had remained a
week longer in session, two thirds would have been secured for the bank
by corrupt means; and that the like result might be apprehended the next
Congress; that such a state bank agency must be put in operation, before
the meeting of Congress, as would show that the United States Bank was
not necessary, and thus some members would have no excuse for voting for
it. 'My suggestions,' added Mr. Duane, 'as to an inquiry by Congress, as
in 1832, or a recourse to the judiciary, the President repelled, saying
that it would be idle to depend upon either; referring, as to the
judiciary, to the decisions already made as indications of what would be
the effect of an appeal to them in future.'
"These, then," continued Mr. Adams, "were the effective _reasons_ of
the President for requiring the removal of the deposits _before_ the
meeting of Congress. The corruptibility of Congress itself, and the
foregone decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, were
alike despised and degraded. The executive will was substituted in the
place of both. These reasons had been urged, without success, on one
Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane. He had been promoted out of
office, and they were now pressed upon the judgment and pliability of
another. He, too, was found refractory, and displaced. A third, more
accommodating, was found in the person of Mr. Taney. To _him_ the
reasons of the President were all-sufficient, and he adopted them
without reserve. They were all summed up in one,--_'Sic volo, sic
jubeo, stet pro_ RATIONE _voluntas_.'
"It is to be regretted that the Secretary of the Treasury did not feel
himself at liberty to assign this reason. In my humble opinion it ought
to have stood in front of all the rest. There is an air of conscious
shamefacedness in the suppression of that which was so glaringly
notorious; and something of an appearance of trifling, if not of
mockery, in presenting a long array of reasons, omitting that which lies
at the foundation of them all.
"The will of the President of the United States was the reason paramount
to all others for the removal, by the Secretary of the Treasury, of the
deposits from the Bank of the United States. It was part of his system
of simplifying the machine of government, to which it was admirably
adapted. It placed the whole revenue of the Union at any time at his
disposal, for any purpose to which he might see fit to apply it. In vain
had the laws cautiously stationed the Register, the Comptroller, the
Treasurer, as checks upon the Secretary of the Treasury, so that the
most trifling sum in the treasury should never be accessible to any one
or any two men. With a removal of the deposits and a transfer draft,
millions on millions may be transferred, by the stroke of the pen of a
supple and submissive Secretary of the Treasury, from place to place, at
home and abroad, wherever any purpose, personal or political, may
thereby be promoted.
"To this final object of simplifying the machine two other maxims have
been proclaimed as auxiliary fundamental principles of this
administration. First, that the contest for place and power, in this
country, is a state of war, and all the emoluments of office are the
spoils of victory. The other, that it is the invariable rule of the
President to reward his friends and punish his enemies."
In the course of the years 1832 and 1833, Freemasonry having become
mingled with the politics of the period, Mr. Adams openly avowed his
hostility to the institution, and addressed a series of letters to
William L. Stone, an editor of one of the New York papers, and another
to Edward Livingston, one of its high officers, and a third to the
Anti-masonic Convention of the State of New York, in which his views,
opinions, and objections to that craft, are stated and developed with
his usual laborious, acute, and searching pathos and power.
In October, 1833, Mr. Adams was applied to by one of his friends for
minutes of the principal measures of Mr. Monroe's administration, while
he was Secretary of State, and also of his own, as President of the
United States, to be used in his defence in a pending election. "I
cannot reconcile myself," said Mr. Adams, "to write anything for my own
election, not even for the refutation of the basest calumnies. In all my
election contests, therefore, my character is at the mercy of the basest
slanderer; and slander is so effective a power in all our elections,
that the friends of the candidates for the highest offices use it
without scruple. I know by experience the power of party spirit upon the
people. Party triumphs over party, and the people are all enrolled in
one party or another. The people can only act by the machinery of
party."
About this time there was an attempt in Norfolk County to get up a
Temperance Society, and a wish was expressed to him that he would take a
lead in forming it. He declined from an unwillingness to shackle himself
with obligations to control his individual, family, and domestic
arrangements; from an apprehension that the temperance societies, in
their well-intended zeal, were already manifesting a tendency to
encroach on personal freedom; and also from an opinion that the cause
was so well sustained by public approbation and applause that it needed
not the aid of his special exertions, beyond that of his own example.
On the 12th of December, 1833, Mr. Clay sent a message to the President
of the United States, asking a copy of his written communication to his
cabinet, made on the 18th of September, about the removal of the
deposits from the United States Bank; to which the President replied by
a flat refusal. Mr. Adams remarked: "There is a tone of insolence and
insult in his intercourse with both houses of Congress, especially since
his reëlection, which never was witnessed between the Executive and
Legislature before. The domineering tone has heretofore been usually on
the side of the legislative bodies to the Executive, and Clay has not
been sparing in the use of it. He is now paid in his own coin."
An intelligent foreigner, in relating a visit to Mr. Adams, in 1834,
thus describes his powers of conversation: "He spoke with infinite ease,
drawing upon his vast resources with the certainty of one who has his
lecture before him ready written. He maintained the conversation nearly
four hours, steadily, in one continuous stream of light. His subjects
were the architecture of the middle ages, the stained glass of that
period, sculpture, embracing monuments particularly. Milton, Shakspeare,
Shenstone, Pope, Byron, and Southey, were in turn remarked upon. He gave
Pope a wonderfully high character, and remarked that one of his chief
beauties was the skill exhibited in varying the cæsural pause, quoting
from various parts of his author to illustrate his remarks. He said
little on the politics of the country, but spoke at considerable length
of Sheridan and Burke, both of whom he had heard, and described with
graphic effect. Junius, he said, was a bad man, but maintained that as a
writer he had never been equalled."[2]
[2] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XLVII., p. 91.
In March, 1834, Mr. Polk, of Tennessee, having indulged in an idolizing
glorification of General Jackson, with some coarse invectives against
Mr. Adams, the latter rose and said: "I shall not reply to the gentleman
from Tennessee; and I give notice, once for all, that, whenever any
admirer of the President of the United States shall think fit to pay his
court to him in this house, either by a flaming panegyric upon him, or
by a rancorous invective on me, he shall never elicit one word of reply
from me.
'No; let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where THRIFT may follow fawning.'"
On the 20th of February, 1834, Mr. Adams attended the funeral of Mr.
Wirt, on which event he thus uttered his feelings: "For the rest of the
day I was unable to attend to anything. I could think of nothing but
William Wirt,--of his fine talents, of his amiable and admirable
character; the twelve years during which we had been in close official
relation together;[3] the scene when he went with me to the capitol; his
warm and honest sympathy with me in my trials when President of the
United States; my interview with him in January, 1831, and his faithful
devotion to the memory of Monroe. These recollections were oppressive to
my feelings. I thought some public testimonial from me to his memory was
due at this time. But Mr. Wirt was no partisan of the present
administration. He had been a formal and dreaded opponent to the
reëlection of Andrew Jackson; and so sure is anything I say or do to
meet insuperable obstruction, that I could not imagine anything I could
offer with the remotest prospect of success. I finally concluded to ask
of the house, tomorrow morning, to have it entered upon the journal of
this day that the adjournment was that the Speaker and members might be
able to attend the funeral of William Wirt. I wrote a short address, to
be delivered at the meeting of the house."
[3] Mr. Wirt was Attorney-General of the United States during the
four last years of Mr. Monroe's and the whole of Mr. Adams'
administration.
It appears, by the journal of the house, that, on the 21st of February,
1834, Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, addressed the chair as follows:[4]
[4] See _Congressional Debates_, vol. X., part 2d, p. 2758.
"MR. SPEAKER: A rule of this house directs that the Speaker
shall examine and correct the journal before it is read. I therefore
now rise, not to make a motion, nor to offer a resolution, but to
ask the unanimous consent of the house to address to you a few words
with a view to an addition which I wish to be made to the journal,
of the adjournment of the house yesterday.
"The Speaker, I presume, would not feel himself authorized to make
the addition in the journal which I propose, without the unanimous
consent of the house; and I therefore now propose it before the
reading of the journal.
"I ask that, after the statement of the adjournment of the house,
there be added to the journal words importing that it was to give
the Speaker and members of the house an opportunity of attending the
funeral obsequies of William Wirt.
"At the adjournment of the house on Wednesday I did not know what
the arrangements were, or would be, for that mournful ceremony. Had
I known them, I should have moved a postponed adjournment, which
would have enabled us to join in the duty of paying the last tribute
of respect to the remains of a man who was an ornament of his
country and of human nature.
"The customs of this and of the other house of Congress warrant the
suspension of their daily labors in the public service, for the
attendance upon funeral rites, only in the case of the decease of
their own members. To extend the usage further might be attended
with inconvenience as a precedent; nor should I have felt myself
warranted in asking it upon any common occasion.
"Mr. Wirt had never been a member of either house of Congress. But
if his form in marble, or his portrait upon canvas, were placed
within these walls, a suitable inscription for it would be that of
the statue of Molière in the hall of the French Academy: 'Nothing
was wanting to his glory; he was wanting to ours.'
"Mr. Wirt had never been a member of Congress; but, for a period of
twelve years, during two successive administrations of the national
government, he had been the official and confidential adviser, upon
all questions of law, of the Presidents of the United States; and he
had discharged the duties of that station entirely to the
satisfaction of those officers and of the country. No member of this
house needs to be reminded how important are the duties of the
Attorney-General of the United States; nor risk I contradiction in
affirming that they were never more ably or more faithfully
discharged than by Mr. Wirt.
"If a mind stored with all the learning appropriate to the
profession of the law, and decorated with all the elegance of
classical literature; if a spirit imbued with the sensibilities of a
lofty patriotism, and chastened by the meditations of a profound
philosophy; if a brilliant imagination, a discerning intellect, a
sound judgment, an indefatigable capacity, and vigorous energy of
application, vivified with an ease and rapidity of elocution,
copious without redundance, and select without affectation; if all
these, united with a sportive vein of humor, an inoffensive temper,
and an angelic purity of heart;--if all these, in their combination,
are the qualities suitable for an Attorney-General of the United
States, in him they were all eminently combined.
"But it is not my purpose to pronounce his eulogy. That pleasing
task has been assigned to abler hands, and to a more suitable
occasion. He will there be presented in other, though not less
interesting lights. As the penetrating delineator of manners and
character in the British Spy; as the biographer of Patrick Henry,
dedicated to the young men of your native commonwealth; as the
friend and delight of the social circle; as the husband and father
in the bosom of a happy, but now most afflicted family;--in all
these characters I have known, admired, and loved him; and now
witnessing, from the very windows of this hall, the last act of
piety and affection over his remains, I have felt as if this house
could scarcely fulfil its high and honorable duties to the country
which he had served, without some slight, be it but a transient,
notice of his decease. The addition which I propose to the journal
of yesterday's adjournment would be such a notice. It would give his
name an honorable place on the recorded annals of his country, in a
manner equally simple and expressive. I will only add that, while I
feel it incumbent upon me to make this proposal, I am sensible that
it is not a fit subject for debate; and, if objected to, I desire
you to consider it as withdrawn."
Mr. Adams proceeds: "When the question of agreeing to the proposed
addition was put by the Speaker, Joel K. Mann, of Pennsylvania,
precisely the rankest Jackson man in the house, said 'No.' There was a
general call upon him, from all quarters of the house, to withdraw his
objection; but he refused. Blair, of South Carolina, rose, and asked if
the manifest sense of the house could be defeated by one objection. The
Speaker said I had requested that my proposal should be considered as
withdrawn if an objection should be made, but the house was competent to
give the instruction, upon motion made. I was then called upon by
perhaps two thirds of the house,--'Move, move, move,'--and said, I had
hoped the proposal would have obtained the unanimous assent of the
house, and as only one objection had been made, which did not appear to
be sustained by the general sense of the house, I would make the motion
that the addition I had proposed should be made on the journal. The
Speaker took the question, and nine tenths, at least, of the members
present answered 'Ay.' There were three or four who answered 'No.' But
no division of the house was asked."
In a debate in the House of Representatives, on the 30th of April, 1834,
on striking out the appropriation for the salaries of certain foreign
ministers, in the course of his remarks, Warren R. Davis, of South
Carolina, turning with great feeling towards Mr. Adams, said: "Well
do I remember the enthusiastic zeal with which we reproached the
administration of that gentleman, and the ardor and vehemence with
which we labored to bring in another. For the share I had in those
transactions,--and it was not a small one,--_I hope God will forgive
me, for I never shall forgive myself_."
In December, 1834, Mr. Adams, at the unanimous request of both houses of
Congress, delivered an oration on the life, character, and services, of
Gilbert Motier de Lafayette. The House of Representatives ordered fifty
thousand copies to be published at the national expense, and the Senate
ten thousand. Mr. Clay said that, in proposing the latter number, he was
governed by the extraordinary vote of the house; but that, "if he were
to be guided by his opinion of the great talents of the orator, and the
extraordinary merit of the oration, he felt he should be unable to
specify any number."
In January, 1835, Mr. Adams, on presenting a petition of one hundred
and seven women of his Congressional district, praying for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, moved its reference
to a select committee, with instructions; but stated that, if the house
chose to refer it to the Committee on the District of Columbia, he
should be satisfied. All he wished was that it should be referred to
some committee. He begged those members who could command a majority of
the house, and who, like himself, were unwilling to make the abolition
question a stumbling-block, to take a course which should treat
petitions with respect. He wished a report. It would be easy to show
that such petitions relative to the District of Columbia ought not
to be granted. He believed the true course to be to let error be
tolerated; to grant freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and
apply reason to put it down. On the contrary, it was contended by
Southern men that Congress had a right not to receive petitions,
especially if produced to create excitement, and wound the feelings
of Southern members. Mr. Adams advocated the right of petition. If
the language was disrespectful, that objection might be stated on the
journal. He knew that it was difficult to use language on this subject
which slaveholders would not deem disrespectful. Congress had declared
the slave-trade, when carried on out of the United States, _piracy_. He
was opposed to that act, because he did not think it proper that this
traffic without our boundaries should be called piracy, while there was
no constitutional right to interdict it within our borders. It was
carried on in sight of the windows of the capitol. He deemed it a
fundamental principle that Congress had no right to take away or
abridge the constitutional right of petition.
The petition was received, its commitment refused by the house, and it
was laid on the table.
About this time Mr. Adams remarked: "There is something extraordinary in
the present condition of parties throughout the Union. Slavery and
democracy--especially a democracy founded, as ours is, on the rights of
man--would seem to be incompatible with each other; and yet, at this
time, the democracy of the country is supported chiefly, if not
entirely, by slavery. There is a small, enthusiastic party preaching the
abolition of slavery upon the principles of extreme democracy. But the
democratic spirit and the popular feeling are everywhere against them."
In August, 1835, Mr. Adams was invited to deliver an address before the
American Institute of New York. After expressing his good wishes for the
prosperity of the institution, and of their cause, he stated, in reply,
that the general considerations which dictated the policy of sustaining
and cherishing the manufacturing interests were obvious, and had been
presented by Judge Baldwin, Mr. J. P. Kennedy, and Mr. Everett, with
eloquence and ability, in addresses on three preceding years. If he
should deliver the address requested, it would be expected that he would
present the subject under new and different views. His own opinion was
that one great difficulty under which the manufacturing interest of the
country labors is a political combination of the South and the West
against it. The slaveholders of the South have bought the coöperation of
the Western country by the bribe of the Western lands, abandoning to the
new Western States their own proportion of this public property, and
aiding them in the design of grasping all the lands in their own hands.
Thomas H. Benton was the author of this system, which he brought forward
as a substitute for the American system of Mr. Clay, and to supplant the
latter as the leading statesman of the West. Mr. Clay, by his tariff
compromise with Mr. Calhoun, abandoned his own American system. At the
same time he brought forward a plan for distributing among all the
states of the Union the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. His
bill for that purpose passed both houses of Congress, but was vetoed by
President Jackson, who, in his annual message of December, 1832,
formally recommended that all the public lands should be gratuitously
given away to individual adventurers, and to the states in which the
lands are situated. "Now," said Mr. Adams, "if, at this time, on the eve
of a presidential election, I should, in a public address to the
American Institute, disclose the state of things, and comment upon it as
I should feel it my duty to do, it would probably produce a great
excitement and irritation; would be charged with having a political
bearing, and subject me to the imputation of tampering with the
election."
On the 25th of May, 1836, Mr. Adams delivered, in the House of
Representatives, a speech on certain resolutions for distributing
rations from the public stores to the distressed fugitives from Indian
hostilities in the States of Alabama and Georgia. "It is," said he, "I
believe, the first example of a system of gratuitous donations to our
own countrymen, infinitely more formidable in its consequences as a
precedent, than from anything appearing on its face. I shall,
nevertheless, vote for it." "It is one of a class of legislative
enactments with which we are already becoming familiar, and which, I
greatly fear, will ere long grow voluminous. I shall take the liberty
to denominate them _the scalping-knife and tomahawk laws_. They are all
urged through by the terror of those instruments of death, under the
most affecting and pathetic appeals, from the constituents of the
sufferers, to all the tender and benevolent sympathies of our nature.
It is impossible for me to withhold from those appeals a responsive and
yielding voice." He had voted, he said, for millions after millions,
and would again and again vote for drafts from the public chest for the
same purpose, should they be necessary, until the treasury itself
should be drained.
In seeking for a principle to justify his vote, he could find it
nowhere but in the war power and its limitation, as expressed in the
constitution of the United States by the words "_the common defence and
general welfare_." The war power was in this respect different from the
peace power. The former was derived from, and regulated by, the laws
and usages of nations. The latter was limited by regulations, and
restricted by provisions, prescribed within the constitution itself.
All the powers incident to war were, by necessary implication,
conferred on the government of the United States. This was the power
which authorized the house to pass this resolution. There was no other.
"It is upon this principle," said Mr. Adams, "that I shall vote for
this resolution, and _did vote against_ the vote reported by the
slavery committee, 'that Congress possess no constitutional authority
to interfere with the institution of slavery.' I do not admit that
there is, even among the peace powers of Congress, no such authority;
but in many ways Congress not only have the authority, but are bound to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the states." Of this he
cites many instances, and asks if, in case of a servile insurrection,
Congress would not have power to interfere, and to supply money from
the funds of the whole Union to suppress it.
In this speech Mr. Adams exposes the effects of the slave influence in
the United States, by the measures taken to bring about a war with
Mexico. 1. By the proposal that she should cede to us a territory large
enough to constitute nine states equal in extent to Kentucky. 2. By
making this proposition at a time when swarms of land-jobbers from the
United States were covering these Mexican territories with slaves, in
defiance of the laws of Mexico by which slavery had been abolished
throughout that republic. 3. By the authority given to General Gaines
to invade the Mexican republic, and which had brought on the war then
raging, which was for the reëstablishment of slavery in territories
where it had been abolished. It was a war, on the part of the United
States, of conquest, and for the extension of slavery. Mr. Adams then
foretold, what subsequent events proved, that the war then commencing
would be, on the part of the United States, "a war of aggression,
conquest, and for the reëstablishment of slavery where it has been
abolished. In that war the banners of _freedom_ will be the banners
of Mexico, and your banners--I blush to speak the word--will be the
banners of slavery."
The nature of that war, its dangers, and its consequences, Mr. Adams
proceeded to analyze, and to show the probability of an interference on
the part of Great Britain, who "will probably ask you a perplexing
question--by what authority you, with freedom, independence, and
democracy, on your lips, are waging a war of extermination, to forge new
manacles and fetters instead of those which are falling from the hands
and feet of men? She will carry emancipation and abolition with her in
every fold of her flag; while your stars, as they increase in numbers,
will be overcast by the murky vapors of oppression, and the only portion
of your banners visible to the eye will be the blood-stained stripes of
the taskmaster."
"Mr. Chairman," continued Mr. Adams, "are you ready for all these wars?
A Mexican war; a war with Great Britain, if not with France; a general
Indian war; a servile war; and, as an inevitable consequence of them
all, a civil war;--for it must ultimately terminate in a war of colors,
as well as of races. And do you imagine that while, with your eyes
open, you are wilfully kindling these wars, and then closing your eyes
and blindly rushing into them,--do you imagine that, while in the very
nature of things your own Southern and South-western States must be
the Flanders of these complicated wars, the battle-field upon which the
last great conflict must be fought between slavery and emancipation,--do
you imagine that your Congress will have no constitutional authority to
interfere with the institution of slavery, _in any way_, in the states
of this confederacy? Sir, they must and will interfere with it, perhaps
to sustain it by war, perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace; and
they will not only possess the constitutional power so to interfere,
but they will be bound in duty to do it by the express provisions of
the constitution itself.
"From the instant that your slaveholding states become the theatre of
war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of
Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every
way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for
slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the state burdened with
slavery to a foreign power.
"Little reason have the inhabitants of Georgia and of Alabama to
complain that the government of the United States has been remiss or
neglectful in protecting them from Indian hostilities. The fact is
directly the reverse. The people of Alabama and Georgia are now
suffering the recoil of their own unlawful weapons. Georgia, sir,
Georgia, by trampling upon the faith of our national treaties with the
Indian tribes, and by subjecting them to her state laws, first set the
example of that policy which is now in the process of consummation by
this Indian war. In setting this example she bade defiance to the
authority of the government of this nation. She nullified your laws; she
set at naught your executive and judicial guardians of the common
constitution of the land. To what extent she carried this policy, the
dungeons of her prisons, and the records of the Supreme Judicial Court
of the United States, can tell.
"To those prisons she committed inoffensive, innocent, pious ministers
of the Gospel of truth, for carrying the light, the comforts, the
consolations of that Gospel, to the hearts and minds of those unhappy
Indians. A solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
pronounced that act a violation of your treaties and your laws. Georgia
defied that decision. Your executive government never carried it into
execution. The imprisoned missionaries of the Gospel were compelled to
purchase their ransom from perpetual captivity by sacrificing their
rights as freemen to the meekness of their principles as Christians: and
you have sanctioned all these outrages upon justice, law, and humanity,
by succumbing to the power and the policy of Georgia; by accommodating
your legislation to her arbitrary will; by tearing to tatters your old
treaties with the Indians, and by constraining them, under _peine
forte et dure_, to the mockery of signing other treaties with you,
which, at the first moment when it shall suit your purpose, you will
again tear to tatters, and scatter to the four winds of heaven; till the
Indian race shall be extinct upon this continent, and it shall become a
problem, beyond the solution of antiquaries and historical societies,
_what_ the red man of the forest was.
"This, sir, is the remote and primitive cause of the present Indian
war--your own injustice sanctioning and sustaining that of Georgia and
Alabama. This system of policy was first introduced by the present
administration of your national government. It is directly the reverse
of that system which had been pursued by all the preceding
administrations of this government under the present constitution. That
system consisted in the most anxious and persevering efforts to
civilize the Indians, to attach them to the soil upon which they lived,
to enlighten their minds, to soften and humanize their hearts, to fix
in permanency their habitations, and to turn them from the wandering
and precarious pursuits of the hunter to the tillage of the ground, to
the cultivation of corn and cotton, to the comforts of the fireside, to
the delights of _home_. This was the system of Washington and of
Jefferson, steadily pursued by all their successors, and to which all
your treaties and all your laws of intercourse with the Indian tribes
were accommodated. The whole system is now broken up, and instead of it
you have adopted that of expelling, by force or by compact, all the
Indian tribes from their own territories and dwellings to a region
beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Arkansas,
bordering upon Mexico; and there you have deluded them with the hope
that they will find a permanent abode, a final resting-place from your
never-ending rapacity and persecution. There you have undertaken to
lead the willing, and drive the reluctant, by fraud or by force, by
treaty or by the sword and the rifle--all the remnants of the
Seminoles, the Creeks, of the Cherokees and the Choctaws, and of how
many other tribes I cannot now stop to enumerate. In the process of
this violent and heartless operation you have met with all the
resistance which men in so helpless a condition as that of the Indian
tribes can make.
"Of the _immediate_ causes of the war we are not yet fully informed;
but I fear you will find them, like the remoter causes, all attributable
to yourselves.
"It is in the last agonies of a people forcibly torn and driven from the
soil which they had inherited from their fathers, and which your own
example, and exhortations, and instructions, and treaties, had riveted
more closely to their hearts--it is in the last convulsive struggles of
their despair, that this war has originated; and, if it bring some
portion of the retributive justice of Heaven upon our own people, it is
our melancholy duty to mitigate, as far as the public resources of the
national treasury will permit, the distresses of our own kindred and
blood, suffering under the necessary consequences of our own wrong. I
shall vote for the resolution."
This speech, perhaps one of the most suggestive and prophetic ever made,
appears in none of the newspapers of the time, and was published by Mr.
Adams from his own minutes and recollections.
In September, 1836, Mr. Adams, at the request of the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Common Council of the city of Boston, delivered a eulogy on the life
and character of James Madison.
On the 7th of January, 1837, Mr. Adams offered to present the petition
of one hundred and fifty women for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, objected to its
reception. Mr. Adams said that the proposition not to receive a petition
was directly in the face of the constitution. He hoped the people of
this country would be spared the mortification, the injustice, and the
wrong, of a decision that such petitions should not be received. It was
indeed true that all discussion, all freedom of speech, all freedom of
the press, on this subject, had been, within the last twelve months,
violently assailed in every form in which the liberties of the people
could be attacked. He considered these attacks as outrages on the
constitution of the country, and the freedom of the people, as far as
they went. But the proposition that such petitions should not be
received went one step further. He hoped it would not obtain the
sanction of the house, which could always reject such petitions after
they had been considered. Among the outrages inflicted on that portion
of the people of this country whose aspirations were raised to the
greatest improvement that could possibly be effected in the condition of
the human race,--the total abolition of slavery on earth,--that of
calumny was the most glaring. Their petitions were treated with
contempt, and the petitioners themselves loaded with foul and infamous
imputations, poured forth on a class of citizens as pure and virtuous as
the inhabitants of any section of the United States.
Violent debates and great confusion in the house ensued; but when the
question, "Shall the petition be received?" was put, it was decided in
the affirmative--_one hundred and twenty-seven_ ayes, _seventy-five_
nays. Mr. Adams then moved that the petition should be referred to the
Committee on the District of Columbia. This was superseded by a motion
to lay it on the table, which passed in the affirmative--ayes _one
hundred and fifty_, nays _fifty_.
On the 18th of January, 1837, the House of Representatives passed a
resolution,--one hundred and thirty-nine ayes, sixty-nine nays,--"that
all petitions relating to slavery, without being printed or referred,
shall be laid on the table, and no action shall be had thereon."
On the 6th of February, 1837, Mr. Adams stated that he held in his hand
a paper, on which, before presenting it, he desired to have the decision
of the Speaker. It purported to come from slaves; and he wished to know
if such a paper came within the order of the house respecting petitions.
Great surprise and astonishment were expressed by the slaveholders in
the house at such a proposition. One member pronounced it an infraction
of decorum, that ought to be punished severely. Another said it was a
violation of the dignity of the house, and ought to be taken and burnt.
Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, moved the following resolution:
"Resolved, that the Honorable 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 the house; and that he
be instantly brought to the bar to receive the severe censure of the
Speaker." Charles E. Haynes, of Georgia, moved "to strike out all after
Resolved, and insert 'that John Quincy Adams, a representative from the
State of Massachusetts, has rendered himself justly liable to the
severest censure of this house, and is censured accordingly, for having
attempted to present to the house the petition of slaves.'" Dixon H.
Lewis, of Alabama, offered a modification of Waddy Thompson's
resolution, which he accepted, "that John Quincy Adams, by his attempt
to introduce into the house a petition from slaves, for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia, committed an outrage on the rights
and feelings of a large portion of the people of this Union, and a
flagrant contempt on the dignity of this house; and, by extending to
slaves a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly invites the slave
population to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called
to the bar of this house, and be censured by the Speaker."
After violent debates and extreme excitement, Mr. Adams rose and said:
"In regard to the resolutions now before the house, as they all concur
in naming me, and charging me with high crimes and misdemeanors, and in
calling me to the bar of the house to answer for my crimes, I have
thought it my duty to remain silent until it should be the pleasure of
the house to act on one or other of those resolutions. I suppose that,
if I shall be brought to the bar of the house, I shall not be struck
mute by the previous question, before I have an opportunity to say a
word or two in my own defence. But, sir, to prevent further consumption
of the time of the house, I deem it my duty to ask them to modify their
resolution. It may be as severe as they propose, but I ask them to
change the matter of fact a little, so that when I come to the bar of
the house, I may not, by a single word, put an end to it. I did not
present the petition, and I appeal to the Speaker to say that I did not.
I said I had a paper purporting to be a petition from slaves. I did not
say what the prayer of the petition was. I asked the Speaker whether he
considered such a paper as included within the general order of the
house that all petitions, memorials, resolutions, and papers, relating
in any way to the subject of slavery, should be laid upon the table. I
intended to take the decision of the Speaker before I went one step
towards presenting, or offering to present, that petition. I stated
distinctly to the Speaker that I should not send the paper to the table
until the question was decided whether a paper from persons declaring
themselves slaves was included within the order of the house. This is
the _fact_."
It having been stated in one of the resolutions that the petition was
for the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams said the gentleman moving it
"must amend his resolution; for, if the house should choose to read this
petition, I can state to them they would find it something very much the
reverse of that which the resolution states it to be; and that if the
gentleman from Alabama still shall choose to bring me to the bar of the
house, he must amend his resolution in a very important particular, for
he probably will have to put into it that my crime has been for
attempting to introduce the petition of slaves that slavery should not
be abolished; and that the object of these slaves, who have sent this
paper to me, is precisely that which he desires to accomplish, and that
they are his auxiliaries, instead of being his opponents."
In respect of the allegation that he had introduced a petition for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, Mr. Adams said: "It
is well known to all the members of this house--it is certainly known
to all petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia--that, from the day I entered this house to the present
moment, I have invariably here, and invariably elsewhere, declared my
opinions to be adverse to the prayer of petitions that call for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. But, sir, it is
equally well known that, from the time I entered this house, down to
the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition,
couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States,
be its object what it may--be the prayer of it that in which I could
concur, or that to which I was utterly opposed. I adhere to the right
of petition; and let me say here that, let the petition be, as the
gentleman from Virginia has stated, from free negroes, prostitutes, as
he supposes,--for he says there is one put on this paper, and he infers
that the rest are of the same description,--_that_ has not altered my
opinion at all. Where is your law which says that the mean, the low,
and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition, if their
moral character is not good? Where, in the land of freemen, was the
right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and
virtue? Petition is supplication--it is entreaty--it is prayer! And
where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the
citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy?
Where is such a law to be found? It does not belong to the most abject
despotism. There is no absolute monarch on earth who is not compelled,
by the constitution of his country, to receive the petitions of his
people, whosoever they may be. The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walk
the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and vilest
in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what does your law
say? Does it say that, before presenting a petition, you shall look
into it, and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and
the mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition
belongs to all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because
it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would
be an additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting."
In the course of this debate Mr. Thompson, of South Carolina, said that
the conduct of Mr. Adams was a proper subject of inquiry by the Grand
Jury of the District of Columbia, and stated that such, in a like case,
would be the proceedings under the law in South Carolina. Mr. Adams, in
reply, exclaimed: "If this is true,--if a member is there made amenable
to the Grand Jury for words spoken in debate,--I thank God I am not a
citizen of South Carolina! Such a threat, when brought before the world,
would excite nothing but contempt and amazement. What! are we from the
Northern States to be indicted as felons and incendiaries, for
presenting petitions not exactly agreeable to some members from the
South, by a jury of twelve men, appointed by a marshal, his office at
the pleasure of the President! If the gentleman from South Carolina, by
bringing forward this resolution of censure, thinks to frighten me from
my purpose, he has mistaken his man. I am not to be intimidated by him,
nor by all the Grand Juries of the universe."
After a debate of excessive exacerbation, lasting for four days, only
twenty votes could be found indirectly and remotely to censure. In the
course of this discussion circumstances made it probable that the names
appended to the petition were not the signatures of slaves, and that
the whole was a forgery, and designed as a hoax upon him. On which
suggestion Mr. Adams stated to the house that he now believed the paper
to be a _forgery_, by a slaveholding master, for the purpose of daring
him to present a petition purporting to be from slaves; that, having
now reason to believe it a forgery, he should not present the petition,
whatever might be the decision of the house. If he should present it at
all, it would be to invoke the authority of the house to cause the
author of it to be prosecuted for the forgery, if there were competent
judicial tribunals, and he could obtain evidence to prove the fact. He
did not consider a forgery committed to deter a member of Congress from
the discharge of his duty as a _hoax_.[5]
[5] _Niles' Weekly Register_, N. S., vol. I., pp. 385--390,
et seq.
In March, 1837, Mr. Adams addressed a series of letters to his
constituents, transmitting his speech vindicating his course on the
right of petition, and his proceedings on the subject of the
presentation of a petition purporting to be from slaves. These letters
were published in a pamphlet, and were at the time justly characterized
as "a triumphant vindication of the right of petition, and a graphic
delineation of the slavery spirit in Congress;" and it was further said
of them, that, "apart from the interest excited by the subjects under
discussion, and viewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked
among the highest literary efforts of the author. Their sarcasm is
Junius-like--cold, keen, unsparing." A few extracts may give an idea of
the spirit and character of this publication.
Commenting on Mr. Thompson's resolution, as modified by Mr. Lewis (p.
249), Mr. Adams exclaims:
"My constituents! Reflect upon the purport of this resolution, which was
immediately accepted by Mr. Thompson as a modification of his own, and
as unhesitatingly received by the Speaker. He well knew I had made no
attempt to introduce to the house a petition from slaves; and, if I had,
he knew I should have done no more than exercise my right as a member of
the house, and that the utmost extent of the power of the house would
have been to refuse to receive the petition. The Speaker's duty was to
reject instantly this resolution, and tell Mr. Lewis and Mr. Thompson
that the first of his obligations was to protect the rights of speech
of members of that house, which I had not in the slightest degree
infringed. But the Speaker was a _master_.
"Observe, too, that in this resolution the notable discovery was first
made that I had directly invited the slaves to insurrection; of which
bright thought Mr. Thompson afterwards availed himself to threaten me
with the Grand Jury of the District of Columbia, as an incendiary and
felon. I pray you to remember this, not on my account, or from the
suspicion that I could or shall ever be moved from my purpose by such
menaces, but to give you _the measure_ of slaveholding freedom of
speech, of the press, of action, of thought! If such a question as
I asked of the Speaker is a direct invitation of the slaves to
insurrection, forfeiting all my rights as representative of the people,
subjecting me to indictment by a grand jury, conviction by a petit jury,
and to an infamous penitentiary cell, I ask you, not what freedom of
speech is left to your representative in Congress, but what freedom of
speech, of the press, and of thought, is left to yourselves.
"There is an express provision of the constitution that Congress shall
pass no law _abridging_ the right of petition; and here is a resolution
declaring that a member ought to be considered as regardless of the
feelings of the house, the rights of the South, and an enemy to the
Union, _for presenting a petition_.
"Regardless of the feelings of the house! What have the feelings of the
house to do with the free agency of a member in the discharge of his
duty? One of the most sacred duties of a member is to present the
petitions committed to his charge; a duty which he cannot refuse or
neglect to perform without violating his oath to support the
constitution of the United States. He is not, indeed, bound to present
all petitions. If the language of the petition be disrespectful to the
house, or to any of its members,--if the prayer of the petition be
unjust, immoral, or unlawful,--if it be accompanied by any manifestation
of intended violence or disorder on the part of the petitioners,--the
duty of the member to present ceases, not from respect for the feelings
of the house, but because those things themselves strike at the freedom
of speech and action as well of the house as of its members. Neither of
these can be in the least degree affected by the mere circumstance of
the condition of the petitioner. Nor is there a shadow of reason why
feelings of the house should be outraged by the presentation of a
petition from slaves, any more than by petitions from soldiers in the
army, seamen in the navy, or from the working-women in a manufactory.
"Regardless of the rights of the South! What are the rights of the
South? What is the _South_? As a component portion of this Union, the
population of the South consists of masters, of slaves, and of free
persons, white and colored, without slaves. Of which of these classes
would the rights be disregarded by the presentation of a petition from
slaves? Surely not those of the slaves themselves, the suffering, the
laborious, the _producing_ classes. O, no! there would be no disregard
of their rights in the presentation of a petition from them. The very
essence of the crime consists in an alleged _undue_ regard for their
rights; in not denying them the rights of human nature; in not classing
them with horses, and dogs, and cats. Neither could the rights of the
free people without slaves, whether white, black, or colored, be
disregarded by the presentation of a petition from slaves. Their rights
could not be affected by it at all. The rights of the South, then, here
mean the rights of the masters of slaves, which, to describe them by an
inoffensive word, I will call the rights of _mastery_. These, by the
constitution of the United States, are recognized, not directly, but by
implication, and protection is stipulated for them, by that instrument,
to a certain extent. But they are rights incompatible with the
inalienable rights of all mankind, as set forth in the Declaration of
Independence--incompatible with the fundamental principles of the
constitutions of all the free states of the Union; and therefore, when
provided for in the constitution of the United States, are indicated by
expressions which must receive the narrowest and most restricted
construction, and never be enlarged by implication. There is, I repeat,
not one word, not one syllable, in the constitution of the United
States, which interdicts to Congress the reception of petitions from
slaves; and as there is express interdiction to Congress to abridge by
law the right of petition, that right, upon every principle of fair
construction, is as much the right of the South as of the North--as
much the right of the slave as of the master; and the presentation of a
petition from slaves, for a legitimate object, respectful in language,
and in its tone and character submissive to the decision which the
house may pass upon it, far from degrading the rights of the South, is
a mark of signal homage to those rights.
"An enemy to the Union for presenting a petition!--an enemy to the
Union! I have shown that the presentation of petitions is one of the
most imperious duties of a member of Congress. I trust I have shown
that the right of petition, guaranteed to the people of the United
States, without exception of slaves, express or implied, cannot be
_abridged_ by any act of both houses, with the approbation of the
President of the United States; but this resolution, by the act of one
branch of the Legislature, would effect an enormous abridgment of the
right of petition, not only by denying it to full one sixth part of the
whole people, but by declaring an enemy to the Union any member of the
house who should present such a petition.
"When the resolution declaring that I had trifled with the house was
under consideration, one of the most prominent allegations laid to my
charge was that, by asking that question, I had intended indirectly to
cast ridicule upon that resolution, and upon the house for adopting it.
Nor was this entirely without foundation. I did not intend to cast
ridicule upon the house, but to expose the absurdity of that resolution,
against which I had protested as unconstitutional and unjust. But the
characteristic peculiarity of this charge against me was, that, while
some of the gentlemen of the South were urging the house to pass a vote
of censure upon me, for a distant and conjectural inference of my
intention to deride that resolution, others of them, in the same debate,
and on the same day, were showering upon the same resolution direct
expressions of unqualified contempt, without even being called to order.
Like the saints in Hudibras,--
'The saints may do the same thing by
The Spirit in sincerity,
Which other men are prompted to,
And at the devil's instance do;
And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary,'--
so it was with the gentlemen of the South. While Mr. Pickens could
openly call the resolution of the 18th of January a miserable and
contemptible resolution,--while Mr. Thompson could say it was only fit
to be burnt by the hands of the hangman, without rebuke or reproof,--I
was to be censured by the house for casting ridicule upon them by asking
the question whether the resolution included petitions from slaves."
About this time Mr. Adams received an invitation to attend a public
meeting at New York during the session of Congress. He replied: "I do
not hold myself at liberty to absent myself from the house a single day.
Such is my estimate of representative duty, confirmed by a positive rule
of the house itself, not the less obligatory for being little observed."
In December, 1835, President Jackson transmitted to Congress a message
relative to the bequest of four hundred thousand dollars, from James
Smithson, of London, to the United States, for the purpose of
establishing at Washington an institution "for the increase and
diffusion of knowledge among men;" and submitted the subject to Congress
for its consideration. A question was immediately raised whether
Congress had power, in its legislative capacity, to accept such a
bequest; and also whether, having the power, its acceptance was
expedient. The message of the President was referred to a committee, of
which Mr. Adams was appointed chairman. No subject could be better
adapted to excite into action his public spirit than the hopes awakened
for his country by the amount of this bequest, and the wisdom of the
objects for which it was appropriated. The general tenor of the
testator's will excited numerous private interests and passions with
regard to the application of the fund. Mr. Adams immediately brought the
whole strength and energy of his mind to give it a proper direction.
Although some of his recommendations were slighted, and an object near
his heart, an astronomical observatory, was resisted by party spirit,
his zeal and perseverance effectually prevented the bequest from being
diverted to local and temporary objects, and his general views relative
to Mr. Smithson's design ultimately prevailed.
In January, 1836, Mr. Adams, as chairman of the committee, made a
report, declaring that Congress was competent to accept the bequest, and
that its acceptance was enjoined by considerations of the most imperious
obligations, and suggesting some interesting reflections on the subject.
The testator, he said, was a descendant in blood from the Percys and the
Seymours,--two of the most illustrious names of the British
islands;--the brother of the Duke of Northumberland, who, by the name of
Percy, was known at the sanguinary opening scenes of our Revolutionary
War, and fought as a British officer at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and
was the bearer of the despatches, from the commander of the British
forces to his government, announcing the event of that memorable day.
"The suggestions which present themselves to the mind," Mr. Adams adds,
"by the association of these historical recollections with the condition
of the testator, derive additional interest from the nature of the
bequest, the devotion of a large estate to an institution 'for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.'" The noble design of Mr.
Smithson Mr. Adams thus proceeds to illustrate:
"Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable
uses, which ever signalized the spirit of the age, or the
comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named more
deserving of the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be
faithfully carried into effect, with an earnestness and sagacity of
application, and a steady perseverance of pursuit, proportioned to
the means furnished by the will of the founder, and to the greatness
and simplicity of his design, as by himself declared, 'the increase
and diffusion of knowledge among men,' it is no extravagance of
anticipation to declare that his name will be hereafter enrolled
among the eminent benefactors of mankind.
"The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of
man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings, inhabitants of
the terrestrial globe. On him alone is bestowed, by the bounty of
the Creator of the universe, the power and the capacity of acquiring
knowledge. Knowledge is the attribute of his nature which at once
enables him to improve his condition upon earth, and to prepare him
for the enjoyment of a happier existence hereafter. It is by this
attribute that man discovers his own nature as the link between
earth and heaven; as the partaker of an immortal spirit; as created
for higher and more durable ends than the countless tribes of beings
which people the earth, the ocean, and the air, alternately instinct
with life, and melting into vapor, or mouldering into dust.
"To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is, therefore, the
greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs
life itself, and enlarges the sphere of existence. The earth was
given to man for cultivation--to the improvement of his own
condition. Whoever increases his knowledge multiplies the uses to
which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator to his own
benefit, and partakes in some degree of that goodness which is the
highest attribute of Omnipotence itself."
"If, then, the Smithsonian Institution, under the smile of an
approving Providence, and by the faithful and permanent application
of the means furnished by its founder to the purpose for which he
has bestowed them, should prove effective to their promotion,--if
they should contribute essentially _to the increase and diffusion
of knowledge among men_,--to what higher or nobler object could
this generous and splendid donation have been devoted?"
After further illustrating the renown of the name of Percy from the
historical annals of England, Mr. Adams proceeds to urge other
considerations, from among which we make the following extracts:
"It is, then, a high and solemn trust which the testator has
committed to the United States of America; and its execution
devolves upon their representatives in Congress duties of no
ordinary importance. In adverting to the character of the trustee
selected by the testator for the fulfilment of his intentions, it is
deemed no indulgence of unreasonable pride to mark it as a signal
manifestation of the moral effect of our political institutions upon
the opinions and the consequent action of the wise and good of other
regions and of distant climes, even upon that nation from whom we
generally boast our descent."
The report continues:
"In the commission of every trust there is an implied tribute to the
integrity and intelligence of the trustee, and there is also an
implied call for the faithful exercise of those properties to the
fulfilment of the purposes of the trust. The tribute and the call
acquire additional force and energy when the trust is committed for
performance after the decease of him by whom it is granted; when he
no longer lives to constrain the effective fulfilment of his design.
The magnitude of the trust, and the extent of confidence bestowed in
the committal of it, do but enlarge and aggravate the pressure of
the obligation which it carries with it. The weight of duty imposed
is proportioned to the honor conferred by confidence without
reserve. Your committee are fully persuaded, therefore, that, with a
grateful sense of the honor conferred by the testator upon the
political institutions of this Union, the Congress of the United
States, in accepting the bequest, will feel, in all its power and
plenitude, the obligation of responding to the confidence reposed by
him, with all the fidelity, disinterestedness, and perseverance of
exertion, which may carry into effective execution the noble purpose
of an endowment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among
men."
The report concludes with recommending a bill, which passed in both
branches, vesting authority in the President to take measures to
prosecute, in the court of chancery in England, the right of the United
States to this bequest.