MARTIN VAN BUREN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH ON
THE CLAIMS OF THE DEPOSIT BANKS.--HIS LETTER ON BOOKS FOR UNIVERSAL
READING.--ORATION AT NEWBURYPORT.--SPEECH ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION.--
LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--ADDRESS TO THE
INHABITANTS OF HIS DISTRICT.--HIS VIEWS AS TO THE APPLICATION OF THE
SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS INTEREST IN THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTER
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE ON AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY.--LETTER ON
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--RESOLUTIONS FOR
THE LIMITING OF HEREDITARY SLAVERY.--DISCOURSE BEFORE THE NEW YORK
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.--ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.--REMARKS ON
PHRENOLOGY.--ON THE LICENSE LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS.--HE ORGANIZES THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
On the 4th of March, 1837, Martin Van Buren succeeded to the Presidency
of the United States. The undeviating zeal with which he had supported
all the plans of Andrew Jackson, especially those for dismembering
Mexico and annexing Texas to the Union as a slave state, had proved, to
the satisfaction of the slaveholders, that reliance might be placed on a
Northern man to carry into effect Southern policy.
On the 14th of October ensuing Mr. Adams delivered a speech, in the
House of Representatives, on a bill for "adjusting the remaining claims
upon the late deposit banks." When this bill was in discussion in a
committee of the whole house, Mr. Adams asked the author of it (Mr.
Cambreling, of New York) to what banks certain words, which he stated,
were intended to apply. Cambreling replied that Mr. Adams could answer
his own interrogatory by reading the bill himself. Mr. Adams then
proceeded to state several other objections to the terms of the bill,
and confessed that his faculties of comprehension did not permit him to
understand its phraseology. Mr. Cambreling rose quickly, and remarked
that, at so late a period of the session, the last working night, he
could not waste his time in discussing nouns, pronouns, verbs, and
adverbs, with the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Adams replied:
"Well, sir, as language is composed of nouns and pronouns, verbs and
adverbs, when they are put together to constitute the law of the land
the _meaning_ of them may surely be demanded of the legislator, and
those parts of speech may well be used for such a purpose. But, if such
explanation be impossible, it certainly ought not to be expected that
this house will consent to pass a law, composed of nouns and pronouns,
verbs and adverbs, which the author of it himself does not
understand."[1]
[1] _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. III., pp. 167,
168.
"On which," said Mr. Adams, "I took the floor, and, in a speech of
upwards of two hours, exposed the true character of the bill, and of
that to which it is a supplement, in all their iniquity and fraud. I
made free use of the computations I had drawn from the reports of the
Secretary of the Treasury, and minutely scrutinized the bill in all its
parts, and denounced the bargain made in the face of the house by
Cambreling and the members of the debtor states, procuring their votes
for the postponement of the bill by promising them increased indulgence
for their banks. Cambreling, who could not answer me, kept up a
continual succession of interruptions and calls to order, in despite of
which I went through, with constant attention from the house, and not a
mark of impatience, except from Cambreling. When I finished, he moved to
lay the bill aside, and take up the appropriation bill, which was done."
On this subject the editor of the _National Register_ remarks: "Mr.
Adams' speech upon nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs, displays a
degree of patient labor and research, which must convince both
political friends and foes that neither time nor circumstances have
impaired the strength or acuteness of his mind, or his zeal in behalf
of what he deems to be the interests of the people. Familiar as we have
been, for a series of years, with minute calculations and statistical
details, the most powerful but least prized modes of exhibiting
results, we have been surprised and delighted at the clearness and
force with which every point is illustrated, and most warmly commend
the speech to all who wish to understand the questions on which it
treats."[2]
[2] _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. III., p. 161.
The name thus given, of "A Speech on Nouns and Pronouns, Verbs and
Adverbs," was assumed by Mr. Adams, and adopted as its title.
On the 22d of June, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to certain young
men of Baltimore, who had written to him a very respectful letter,
asking his advice concerning the books or authors he would recommend.
After a general expression of his sense of their confidence, and regret
of his inability fully to recommend any list of books or authors worthy
of the attention of all, he proceeds to speak of the _Bible_ as almost
the only book deserving such universal recommendation, and as the book,
of all others, to be read at all ages and in all conditions of human
life--to be read in small portions, one or two chapters every day,
never to be intermitted unless by some overruling necessity. He then
enters at large into the advantages of such a practice, and into the
mode of conducting it, and proceeds to suggest other subsidiary studies
in history, biography, and poetry, concluding with the advice of the
serving-man to a young student, in Shakspeare--"Study what you most
affect."[3]
[3] _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. V., p. 219.
On the 4th of July, 1837, Mr. Adams delivered at Newburyport, at the
request of its inhabitants, an oration on the Declaration of
Independence, the spirit of which may be discerned in the following
extract:
"Our government is a complicated machine. We have twenty-six states,
with governments administered by separate legislatures and executive
chiefs, and represented by equal numbers in the general Senate of
the nation. This organization is an anomaly in the history of the
world. It is that which distinguishes us from all other nations,
ancient and modern: from the simple monarchies and republics of
Europe, and from the confederacies which have figured in any age
upon the face of the globe. The seeds of this complicated machine
were all sown in the Declaration of Independence; and their fruits
can never be eradicated but by the dissolution of the Union. The
calculators of the value of the Union, who would palm upon you, in
the place of this sublime invention, a mere cluster of sovereign,
confederated states, do but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind.
"One lamentable evidence of deep degeneracy from the spirit of
the Declaration of Independence is the countenance which has been
occasionally given, in various parts of the Union, to this
doctrine; but it is consolatory to know that, whenever it has
been distinctly disclosed to the people, it has been rejected by
them with pointed reprobation. It has, indeed, presented itself in
its most malignant form in that portion of the Union the civil
institutions of which are most infected by the gangrene of slavery.
The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the
principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented
by all the Southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with
deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the
Declaration himself. No insincerity or hypocrisy can fairly be laid
to their charge. Never, from _their_ lips, was heard one syllable
of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally
considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural
step-mother country; and they saw that, before the principles of
the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every
other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be
banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of
Jefferson to his dying day. In the memoir of his life, written at
the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and
emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they _must_ hear
and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves. 'Nothing is
more certainly written,' said he, 'in the book of fate, than that
these people are to be free.' My countrymen! it is written in a
better volume than the book of fate; it is written in the laws of
Nature and of Nature's God.
"We are told, indeed, by the learned doctors of the nullification
school, that color operates as a forfeiture of the rights of human
nature: that a dark skin turns a man into a chattel; that crispy
hair transforms a human being into a four-footed beast. The
master-priest informs you that slavery is consecrated and sanctified
by the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament: that Ham was
the father of Canaan, and all his posterity were doomed, by his own
father, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the descendants
of Shem and Japhet: that the native Americans of African descent are
the children of Ham, with the curse of Noah still fastened upon
them; and the native Americans of European descent are children of
Japhet, pure Anglo-Saxon blood, born to command, and to live by the
sweat of another's brow. The master-philosopher teaches you that
slavery is no curse, but a blessing! that
Providence--Providence!--has so ordered it that this country should
be inhabited by two races of men,--one born to wield the scourge,
and the other to bear the record of its stripes upon his back; one
to earn, through a toilsome life, the other's bread, and to feed him
on a bed of roses; that slavery is the guardian and promoter of
wisdom and virtue; that the slave, by laboring for another's
enjoyment, learns disinterestedness and humility; that the master,
nurtured, clothed, and sheltered, by another's toils, learns to be
generous and grateful to the slave, and sometimes to feel for him as
a father for his child; that, released from the necessity of
supplying his own wants, he acquires opportunity of leisure to
improve his mind, to purify his heart, to cultivate his taste; that
he has time on his hands to plunge into the depths of philosophy,
and to soar to the clear empyrean of seraphic morality. The
master-statesman--ay, the statesman in the land of the Declaration
of Independence, in the halls of national legislation, with the muse
of history recording his words as they drop from his lips, with the
colossal figure of American Liberty leaning on a column entwined
with the emblem of eternity over his head, with the forms of
Washington and Lafayette speaking to him from the canvas--turns to
the image of the father of his country, and, forgetting that the
last act of his life was to emancipate his slaves, to bolster up the
cause of slavery says, '_That_ man was a slaveholder.'
"My countrymen! these are the tenets of the modern nullification
school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free
discussion--that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth?
Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for
the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us--of that Union
proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence--of that Union never
to be divided by any act whatever--and who dreads that the
discussion of the merits of slavery will endanger the continuance of
the Union? Let him discard his terrors, and be assured that they are
no other than the phantom fears of nullification; that, while
doctrines like these are taught in her schools of philosophy,
preached in her pulpits, and avowed in her legislative councils, the
free, unrestrained discussion of the rights and wrongs of slavery,
far from endangering the Union of these states, is the only
condition upon which that Union can be preserved and perpetuated.
What! are you to be told, with one breath, that the transcendent
glory of this day consists in the proclamation that all lawful
government is founded on the inalienable rights of man, and, with
the next breath, that you must not whisper this truth to the winds,
lest they should taint the atmosphere with freedom, and kindle the
flame of insurrection? Are you to bless the earth beneath your feet
because she spurns the footsteps of a slave, and then to choke the
utterance of your voice lest the sound of liberty should be reëchoed
from the palmetto-groves, mingled with the discordant notes of
disunion? No! no! Freedom of speech is the only safety-valve which,
under the high pressure of slavery, can preserve your political
boiler from a fearful and fatal explosion. Let it be admitted that
slavery is an institution of internal police, exclusively subject to
the separate jurisdiction of the states where it is cherished as a
blessing, or tolerated as an evil as yet irremediable. But let that
slavery which intrenches herself within the walls of her own
impregnable fortress not sally forth to conquest over the domain of
freedom. Intrude not beyond the hallowed bounds of oppression; but,
if you have by solemn compact doomed your ears to hear the distant
clanking of the chain, let not the fetters of the slave be forged
afresh upon your own soil; far less permit them to be riveted upon
your own feet. Quench not the spirit of freedom. Let it go forth,
not in panoply of fleshly wisdom, but with the promise of peace, and
the voice of persuasion, clad in the whole armor of truth,
conquering and to conquer."
In July, 1838, Mr. Adams published a speech "on the right of the
people, men and women, to petition; on the freedom of speech and debate
in the House of Representatives of the United States; on the
resolutions of seven State Legislatures, and on the petitions of more
than one hundred thousand petitioners, relative to the annexation of
Texas to this Union;" the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on
these subjects being under the consideration of the House. In this
publication he states and analyzes the course of that "conspiracy for
the dismemberment of Mexico, the reïnstitution of slavery in the
dismembered portion of that republic, and the acquisition, by purchase
or by conquest, of the territory, to sustain, spread, and perpetuate,
the _moral and religious blessing_ of slavery in this Union;" and which
he declares to be in the full tide of successful experiment. But a few
only of the topics illustrated in this publication, which expanded into
a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty octavo pages, can here be touched.
It is, in fact, a history of the disgraceful proceedings by which that
conspiracy effected its purpose.
Mr. Adams inquired of the committee whether they had given as much as
five minutes' consideration to the resolutions of the Legislatures, and
the very numerous petitions of individuals, which had been referred to
them. One of the committee, Hugh S. Legaré, of South Carolina, answered,
he had not read the papers, nor looked into one of them. Mr. Adams
exclaimed, "I denounce, in the face of the country, the proceeding of
the committee, in reporting upon papers referred to them, without
looking into any one of them, as utterly incorrect. I assert, as a great
general principle, that when resolutions from Legislatures of states,
and petitions from a vast multitude of our fellow-citizens, on a subject
of deep, vital importance to the country, are referred to a committee of
this house, if that committee make up an opinion without looking into
such resolutions and memorials, the committee betray their trust to
their constituents and this house. I give this out to the nation."
A long and exciting debate, lasting from the 16th of June to the 7th of
July, on the report of the committee relative to the annexation of
Texas, ensued; the heat and violence of which were chiefly directed upon
Mr. Adams.
One of the topics agitated during this debate arose upon a speech of
Mr. Howard, of Maryland. Among the petitions against the annexation of
Texas were many signed by women. On these Mr. Howard said, he always
felt a regret when petitions thus signed were presented to the house,
relating to political subjects. He thought these females could have a
sufficient field for the exercise of their influence in the discharge
of their duties to their fathers, their husbands, or their children,
cheering the domestic circle, and shedding over it the mild radiance of
the social virtues, instead of rushing into the fierce struggles of
political life. He considered it _discreditable_, not only to their
particular section of country, but also to the national character.
Mr. Adams immediately entered into a long and animated defence of the
right of petition by women; in the course of which he asked "whether
women, by petitioning this house in favor of suffering and distress,
perform an office 'discreditable' to themselves, to the section of the
country where they reside, and to this nation. The gentleman says that
women have no right to petition Congress on political subjects. Why?
Sir, what does the gentleman understand by 'political subjects'?
Everything in which the house has an agency--everything which relates
to peace and relates to war, or to any other of the great interests of
society. Are women to have no opinions or actions on subjects relating
to the general welfare? Where did the gentleman get this principle? Did
he find it in sacred history--in the language of Miriam the prophetess,
in one of the noblest and most sublime songs of triumph that ever met
the human eye or ear? Did the gentleman never hear of Deborah, to whom
the children of Israel came up for judgment? Has he forgotten the deed
of Jael, who slew the dreaded enemy of her country? Has he forgotten
Esther, who, by HER PETITION, saved her people and her country? Sir, I
might go through the whole of the sacred history of the Jews to the
advent of our Saviour, and find innumerable examples of women, who not
only took an active part in the politics of their times, but who are
held up with honor to posterity for doing so Our Saviour himself, while
on earth, performed that most stupendous miracle, the raising of
Lazarus from the dead, at _the petition of a woman_! To go from sacred
history to profane, does the gentleman there find it 'discreditable'
for women to take any interest or any part in political affairs? In the
history of Greece, let him read and examine the character of Aspasia,
in a country in which the character and conduct of women were more
restricted than in any modern nation, save among the Turks. Has he
forgotten that Spartan mother, who said to her son, when going out to
battle, 'My son, come back to me _with_ thy shield, or _upon_ thy
shield'? Does he not remember Cloelia and her hundred companions, who
swam across the river, under a shower of darts, escaping from Porsenna?
Has he forgotten Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who declared that
her children were her jewels? And why? Because they were the champions
of freedom. Does he not remember Portia, the wife of Brutus and
daughter of Cato, and in what terms she is represented in the history
of Rome? Has he not read of Arria, who, under imperial despotism, when
her husband was condemned to die by a tyrant, plunged the sword into
her own bosom, and, handing it to her husband, said, 'Take it, Pætus,
it does not hurt,' and expired?
"To come to a later period,--what says the history of our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors? To say nothing of Boadicea, the British heroine in the time
of the Cæsars, what name is more illustrious than that of Elizabeth?
Or, if he will go to the Continent, will he not find the names of Maria
Theresa of Hungary, the two Catharines of Russia, and of Isabella of
Castile, the patroness of Columbus, the discoverer in substance of this
hemisphere, for without her that discovery would not have been made?
Did she bring 'discredit' on her sex by mingling in politics? To come
nearer home,--what were the women of the United States in the struggle
of the Revolution? Or what would the men have been but for the
influence of the women of that day? Were they devoted _exclusively_ to
the duties and enjoyments of the fireside? Take, for example, the
ladies of Philadelphia."
Mr. Adams here read a long extract from Judge Johnson's life of General
Greene, relating that during the Revolutionary War a call came from
General Washington stating that the troops were destitute of shirts, and
of many indispensable articles of clothing. "And from whence," writes
Judge Johnson, "did relief arrive, at last? From the heart where
patriotism erects her favorite shrine, and from the hand which is seldom
withdrawn when the soldier solicits. The ladies of Philadelphia
immortalized themselves by commencing the generous work, and it was a
work too grateful to the American fair not to be followed up with zeal
and alacrity."
Mr. Adams then read a long quotation from Dr. Ramsay's history of South
Carolina, "which speaks," said he, "trumpet-tongued, of the daring and
intrepid spirit of patriotism burning in the bosoms of the ladies of
that state." After reading an extract from this history, Mr. Adams
thus comments upon it: "Politics, sir! 'rushing into the vortex of
politics!'--glorying in being called rebel ladies; refusing to attend
balls and entertainments, but crowding to the prison-ships! Mark this,
and remember it was done with no small danger to their own persons, and
to the safety of their families. But it manifested the spirit by which
they were animated; and, sir, is that spirit to be charged here, in
this hall where we are sitting, as being 'discreditable' to our
country's name? Shall it be said that such conduct was a national
reproach, because it was the conduct of women who left 'their domestic
concerns, and rushed into the vortex of politics'? Sir, these women did
more; they _petitioned_--yes, they petitioned--and that in a matter of
politics. It was for the _life of Hayne_."
In connection with this eloquent defence of the right of women to
interfere in politics, of which the above extracts are but an outline,
Mr. Adams thus applies the result to the particular subject of
controversy:
"The broad principle is _morally wrong, vicious_, and the very
reverse of that which ought to prevail. Why does it follow that
women are fitted for nothing but the cares of domestic life: for
bearing children, and cooking the food of a family; devoting all
their time to the domestic circle,--to promoting the immediate
personal comfort of their husbands, brothers, and sons? Observe,
sir, the point of departure between the chairman of the committee
and myself. I admit that it is their duty to attend to these
things. I subscribe fully to the elegant compliment passed by him
upon those members of the female sex who devote their time to these
duties. But I say that the correct principle is that women are not
only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do
depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their
country, of humanity, and of their God. The mere departure of woman
from the duties of the domestic circle, far from being a reproach
to her, is a virtue of the highest order, when it is done from
purity of motive, by appropriate means, and towards a virtuous
purpose. There is the true distinction. The motive must be pure,
the means appropriate, and the purpose good; and I say that woman,
by the discharge of such duties, has manifested a virtue which is
even above the virtues of mankind, and approaches to a superior
nature. That is the principle I maintain, and which the chairman of
the committee has to refute, if he applies the position he has
taken to the mothers, the sisters, and the daughters, of the men of
my district who voted to send me here. Now, I aver further, that,
in the instance to which his observation refers, namely, in the act
of petitioning against the annexation of Texas to this Union, the
motive was pure, the means appropriate, and the purpose virtuous,
in the highest degree. As an evident proof of this, I recur to the
particular petition from which this debate took its rise, namely,
to the first petition I presented here against the annexation--a
petition consisting of three lines, and signed by two hundred and
thirty-eight women of Plymouth, a principal town in my own
district. Their words are:
"'The undersigned, women of Plymouth (Mass.), thoroughly aware of
the sinfulness of slavery, and the consequent impolicy and
disastrous tendency of its extension in our country, do most
respectfully remonstrate, with all our souls, against the annexation
of Texas to the United States as a slaveholding territory.'
"These are the words of their memorial; and I say that, in
presenting it here, their motive was pure, and of the highest order
of purity. They petitioned under a conviction that the consequence
of the annexation would be the advancement of that which is sin in
the sight of God, namely, slavery. I say, further, that the means
were appropriate, because it is Congress who must decide on the
question; and therefore it is proper that they should petition
Congress, if they wish to prevent the annexation. And I say, in the
third place, that the end was virtuous, pure, and of the most
exalted character, namely, to prevent the perpetuation and spread of
slavery throughout America. I say, moreover, that I subscribe, in my
own person, to every word the petition contains. I do believe
slavery to be a sin before God; and that is the reason, and the only
insurmountable reason, why we should refuse to annex Texas to this
Union."
On the 28th July, 1838, to an invitation from the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society to attend their celebration of the anniversary of
the day upon which slavery was abolished in the colonial possessions of
Great Britain, Mr. Adams responded:
"It would give me pleasure to comply with this invitation; but my
health is not very firm. My voice has been affected by the intense
heat of the season; and a multiplicity of applications, from
societies political and literary, to attend and address their
meetings, have imposed upon me the necessity of pleading the
privilege of my years, and declining them all.
"I rejoice that the defence of the cause of human freedom is falling
into younger and more vigorous hands. That, in three-score years
from the day of the Declaration of Independence, its self-evident
truths should be yet struggling for existence against the degeneracy
of an age pampered with prosperity, and languishing into servitude,
is a melancholy truth, from which I should in vain attempt to shut
my eyes. But the summons has gone forth. The youthful champions of
the rights of human nature have buckled and are buckling on their
armor; and the scourging overseer, and the lynching lawyer, and the
servile sophist, and the faithless scribe, and the priestly
parasite, will vanish before them like Satan touched by the spear of
Ithuriel. I live in the faith and hope of the progressive
advancement of Christian liberty, and expect to abide by the same in
death. You have a glorious though arduous career before you; and it
is among the consolations of my last days that I am able to cheer
you in the pursuit, and exhort you to be steadfast and immovable in
it. So shall you not fail, whatever may betide, to reap a rich
reward in the blessing of him that is ready to perish, upon your
soul."
In August, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to the inhabitants of
his district, in which, after stating what had been done on the same
subject by the Legislature of Massachusetts and other states, he
proceeded to recapitulate the wrongs which had been done to the
colored races of Africa on this continent, "which have indeed been of
long standing, but which in these latter days have been aggravated
beyond all measure. To repair the injustice of our fathers to these
races had been, from the day of the Declaration of Independence, the
conscience of the good and the counsel of the wise rulers of the land.
Washington, by his own example in the testamentary disposal of his
property,--Jefferson, by the unhesitating convictions of his own mind,
by unanswerable argument and eloquent persuasion, addressed almost
incessantly, throughout a long life, to the reason and feelings of his
countrymen,--had done homage to the self-evident principles which the
nation, at her birth, had been the first to proclaim. Emancipation,
universal emancipation, was the lesson they had urged on their
contemporaries, and held forth as transcendent and irremissible duties
to their children of the present age. Instead of which, what have we
seen? Communities of slaveholding braggarts, setting at defiance the
laws of nature and nature's God, restoring slavery where it had been
extinguished, and vainly dreaming to make it eternal; forming, in the
sacred name of liberty, constitutions of government interdicting to the
legislative authority itself that most blessed of human powers, the
power of giving liberty to the slave! Governors of states urging upon
their Legislatures to make the exercise of the freedom of speech to
propagate the right of the slave to freedom felony, without benefit of
clergy! Ministers of the gospel, like the priest in the parable of the
Good Samaritan, coming and looking at the bleeding victim of the
highway robber, and passing on the other side; or, baser still,
perverting the pages of the sacred volume to turn into a code of
slavery the very word of God! Philosophers, like the Sophists of
ancient Greece, pulverized by the sober sense of Socrates, elaborating
theories of _moral slavery_ from the alembic of a sugar plantation, and
vaporing about lofty sentiments and generous benevolence to be learnt
from the hereditary bondage of man to man! Infuriated mobs, murdering
the peaceful ministers of Christ for the purpose of extinguishing the
light of a printing-press, and burning with unhallowed fire the hall of
freedom, the orphan's school, and the church devoted to the worship of
God! And, last of all, both houses of Congress turning a deaf ear to
hundreds of thousands of petitioners, and quibbling away their duty to
read, to listen, and consider, in doubtful disputations whether they
shall receive, or, receiving, refuse to read or hear, the complaints
and prayers of their fellow-citizens and fellow-men!"
Mr. Adams proceeds, in a like spirit of eloquent plainness, to denounce
the violation of that beneficent change which both Washington and
Jefferson had devised for the red man of the forest, and had assured to
him by solemn treaties pledging the faith of the nation, and by laws
interdicting by severe penalties the intrusion of the white man on his
domain. "In contempt of those treaties," said he, "and in defiance of
those laws, the sovereign State of Georgia had extended her jurisdiction
over these Indian lands, and lavished, in lottery-tickets to her people,
the growing harvests, the cultivated fields, and furnished dwellings, of
the Cherokee, setting at naught the solemn adjudication of the Supreme
Court of the United States, pronouncing this licensed robbery alike
lawless and unconstitutional." He then proceeds, in a strain of severe
animadversion, to reprobate the conduct of the Executive administration,
in "truckling to these usurpations of Georgia;" and reviews that of
Congress, in refusing "the petitions of fifteen thousand of these
cheated and plundered people," when thousands of our own citizens joined
in their supplications.
In this letter Mr. Adams states and explains the origin of the treaty of
peace and alliance between Southern nullification and Northern
pro-slavery, and the nature and consequences of that alliance. In the
course of his illustrations on this subject he repels, with an
irresistible power of argument, the attempt of the slaveholder to sow
the seeds of discord among the freemen of the North. "The condition of
master and slave is," he considered, "by the laws of nature and of God,
a state of perpetual, inextinguishable war. The slaveholder, deeply
conscious of this, soothes his soul by sophistical reasonings into a
belief that this same war still exists in free communities between the
capitalist and free labor." The fallacy and falsehood of this theory he
analyzes and exposes, and proceeds to state and reason upon various
measures of Congress connected with these topics, at great length, and
with laborious elucidation.[4]
[4] For this letter see _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series,
vol. V., p. 55.
On the 27th of October, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to the
district he represented in Congress, in which he touched on those points
of national policy which most deeply affected his mind. Among many
remarks worthy of anxious thought, which subsequent events have
confirmed and are confirming, he traces the "smothering for nearly three
years, in legislative halls, the right of petition and freedom of
debate," to the influence of slavery, "which shrinks, and will shrink,
from the eye of day. Northern subserviency to Southern dictation is the
price paid by a Northern administration for Southern support. The people
of the North still support by their suffrages the men who have truckled
to Southern domination. I believe it impossible that this total
subversion of every principle of liberty should be much longer submitted
to by the people of the free states of this Union. But their fate is in
their own hands. If they choose to be represented by slaves, they will
find servility enough to represent and betray them. The suspension of
the right of petition, the suppression of the freedom of debate, the
thirst for the annexation of Texas, the war-whoop of two successive
Presidents against Mexico, are all but varied symptoms of a deadly
disease seated in the marrow of our bones, and that deadly disease is
slavery."
When, in the latter part of June, 1838, news of the success of Mr. Rush
in obtaining the Smithsonian bequest, and information that he had
already received on account of it more than half a million of dollars,
were announced to the public, Mr. Adams lost no time in endeavoring to
give a right direction to the government on the subject. He immediately
waited upon the President of the United States, and, in a conversation
of two hours, explained the views he entertained in regard to the
application of that fund, and entreated him to have a plan prepared, to
recommend to Congress, for the foundation of the institution, at the
commencement of the next session. "I suggested to him," said Mr. Adams,
"the establishment of an Astronomical Observatory, with a salary for an
astronomer and assistant, for nightly observations and periodical
publications; annual courses of lectures upon the natural, moral, and
political sciences. Above all, no jobbing, no sinecure, no monkish
stalls for lazy idlers. I urged the deep responsibility of the nation to
the world and to all posterity worthily to fulfil the great object of
the testator. I only lamented my inability to communicate half the
solicitude with which my heart is on this subject full, and the
sluggishness with which I failed properly to pursue it." "Mr. Van
Buren," Mr. Adams added, "received all this with complacency and
apparent concurrence of opinion, seemed favorably disposed to my views
and willing to do right, and asked me to name any person whom I thought
might be usefully consulted."
The phenomena of the heavens were constantly observed and often recorded
by Mr. Adams. Thus, on the 3d of October, 1838, he writes: "As the clock
struck five this morning, I saw the planets Venus and Mercury in
conjunction, Mercury being about two thirds of a sun's disk below and
northward of Venus. Three quarters of an hour later Mercury was barely
perceptible, and five minutes after could not be traced by my naked eye,
Venus being for ten minutes longer visible. I ascertained, therefore,
that, in the clear sky of this latitude, Mercury, at his greatest
elongation from the sun, may be seen by a very imperfect naked eye, in
the morning twilight, for the space of one hour. I observed, also, the
rapidity of his movements, by the diminished distance between these
planets since the day before yesterday."
In the following November he again writes: "To make observations on the
movements of the heavenly bodies has been, for a great portion of my
life, a pleasure of gratified curiosity, of ever-returning wonder, and
of reverence for the great Creator and Mover of these innumerable
worlds. There is something of awful enjoyment in observing the rising
and the setting of the sun. That flashing beam of his first appearing
upon the horizon; that sinking of the last ray beneath it; that
perpetual revolution of the Great and Little Bear around the pole; that
rising of the whole constellation of Orion from the horizon to the
perpendicular position, and his ride through the heavens with his belt,
his nebulous sword, and his four corner stars of the first magnitude,
are sources of delight which never tire. Even the optical delusion, by
which the motion of the earth from west to east appears to the eye as
the movement of the whole firmament from east to west, swells the
conception of magnificence to the incomprehensible infinite."
When one of his friends expressed a hope that we should hereafter know
more of the brilliant stars around us, Mr. Adams replied: "I trust so. I
cannot conceive of a world where the stars are not visible, and, if
there is one, I trust I shall never be sent to it. Nothing conveys to my
mind the idea of eternity so forcibly as the grand spectacle of the
heavens in a clear night."
To a letter addressed to him by the Secretary of State, by direction of
the President, requesting him to communicate the result of his
reflections on the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. Adams made the following
reply:
"QUINCY, _October 11, 1838_.
"SIR: I have reserved for a separate letter what I proposed to say
in recommending the erection and establishment of an Astronomical
Observatory at Washington, as one and the first application of the
annual income from the Smithsonian bequest, because that, of all
that I have to say, I deem it by far the most important; and
because, having for many years believed that the national character
of our country demanded of us the establishment of such an
institution as a debt of honor to the cause of science and to the
world of civilized man, I have hailed with cheering hope this
opportunity of removing the greatest obstacle which has hitherto
disappointed the earnest wishes that I have entertained of
witnessing, before my own departure for another world, now near at
hand, the disappearance of a stain upon our good name, in the
neglect to provide the means of increasing and diffusing knowledge
among men, by a systematic and scientific continued series of
observations on the phenomena of the numberless worlds suspended
over our heads--the sublimest of physical sciences, and that in
which the field of future discovery is as unbounded as the universe
itself. I allude to the continued and necessary _expense_ of such
an establishment.
"In my former letter I proposed that, to preserve entire and
unimpaired the Smithsonian fund, as the principal of a perpetual
annuity, the annual appropriations from its proceeds should be
strictly confined to its annual income; that, assuming the amount of
the fund to be five hundred thousand dollars, it should be so
invested as to secure a permanent yearly income of thirty thousand;
and that it should be committed to an incorporated board of
trustees, with a secretary and treasurer, the only person of the
board to receive a pecuniary compensation from the fund."
Mr. Adams then refers to a report made by C. F. Mercer, chairman of a
committee of the House of Representatives, on the 18th of March, 1826
(during his own administration), relative to the expenses of an
Observatory, for much valuable information, and thus proceeds:
"But, as it is desirable that the principal building, the
Observatory itself, should be, for the purposes of observation,
unsurpassed by any other edifice constructed for the same purposes,
I would devote one year's interest from the fund to the construction
of the buildings; a second and a third to constitute a fund, from
the income of which the salaries of the astronomer, his assistants
and attendants, should be paid; a fourth and fifth for the necessary
instruments and books; a sixth and seventh for a fund, from the
income of which the expense should be defrayed of publishing the
ephemeris of observation, and a yearly nautical almanac. These
appropriations may be so distributed as to apply a part of the
appropriation of each year to each of those necessary expenditures;
but for an establishment so complete as may do honor in all time
alike to the testator and his trustees, the United States of
America, I cannot reduce my estimate of the necessary expense below
two hundred thousand dollars.
"My principles for this disposal of funds are these:
"1st. That the most complete establishment of an Astronomical
Observatory in the world should be founded by the United States of
America; the whole expense of which, both its first cost and its
perpetual maintenance, should be amply provided for, without
costing one dollar either to the people or to the _principal_ sum
of the Smithsonian bequest.
"2d. That, by providing from the income alone of the fund a
supplementary fund, from the interest of which all the salaries
shall be paid, and all the annual expenses of publication shall be
defrayed, the fund itself would, instead of being impaired,
accumulate with the lapse of years. I do most fervently wish that
this principle might be made the fundamental law, now and hereafter,
so far as may be practicable, of all the appropriations of the
Smithsonian bequest.
"3d. That, by the establishment of an Observatory upon the largest
and most liberal scale, and providing for the publication of a
yearly nautical almanac, knowledge will be dispersed among men, the
reputation of our country will rise to honor and reverence among the
civilized nations of the earth, and our navigators and mariners on
every ocean be no longer dependent on English or French observers or
calculators for tables indispensable to conduct their path upon the
deep."
Mr. Adams, about this period, expressed himself with deep
dissatisfaction at the course pursued by the President relative to the
Smithsonian bequest, combining the general expression of a disposition
to aid his views with apparently a total indifference as to the
expenditure of the money. "The subject," said he, "weighs deeply upon my
mind. The private interests and sordid passions into which that fund has
already fallen fill me with anxiety and apprehensions that it will be
squandered upon cormorants, or wasted in electioneering bribery. Almost
all the heads of department are indifferent to its application according
to the testator's bequest; distinguished senators open or disguised
enemies to the establishment of the institution in any form. The utter
prostration of public spirit in the Senate, proved by the selfish
project to apply it to the establishment of a university; the investment
of the whole fund, more than half a million of dollars, in Arkansas and
Michigan state stocks; the mean trick of filching ten thousand dollars,
last winter, to pay for the charges of procuring it, are all so utterly
discouraging that I despair of effecting anything for the honor of the
country, or even to accomplish the purpose of the bequest, the increase
and diffusion of knowledge among men. It is hard to toil through life
for a great purpose, with a conviction that it will be in vain; but
possibly seed now sown may bring forth some good fruits. In my report,
in January, 1836, I laid down all the general principles on which the
fund should have been accepted and administered. I was then wholly
successful. My bill passed without opposition, and under its provisions
the money was procured and deposited in the treasury in gold. If I
cannot prevent the disgrace of the country by the failure of the
testator's intention, I can leave a record to future time of what I have
done, and what I would have done, to accomplish the great design, if
executed well. And let not the supplication to the Author of Good be
wanting."
In November, 1838, the anti-slavery party made the immediate abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia a test question, on which Mr.
Adams remarked: "This is absurd, because notoriously impracticable. The
house would refuse to consider the question two to one." Writing on the
same subject, in December of the same year, "I doubt," said he, "if
there are five members in the house who would vote to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia at this time. The conflict between the
principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an
issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the
approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the
councils of Omnipotence I cannot doubt. It is a part of the great moral
improvement in the condition of man attested by all the records of
history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of
improvement retrograde, before its final progress to consummation."
In January, 1839, Mr. Adams, in presenting a large number of petitions
for the abolition of slavery, asked leave to explain to the house his
reasons for the course he had adopted in relation to petitions of this
character. He asked it as a courtesy. He had received a mass of letters
threatening him with assassination for this course. His real position
was not understood by his country. The house having granted the leave,
he proceeded to state that, although he had zealously advocated the
right to petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, he was not himself then, prepared to grant their prayer; that,
if the question should be presented at once, he should vote against it.
He knew not what change might be produced on his mind by a full and fair
discussion, but he had not yet seen any reason to change his opinion,
although he had read all that abolitionists themselves had written and
published on the subject. He then presented the petitions, and moved
appropriate resolutions.
On the 21st of February, 1839, Mr. Adams presented to the house several
resolutions, proposing, in the form prescribed by the constitution of
the United States, 1st. That after the 4th day of July, 1842, there
shall be no hereditary slavery in the United States, and that every
child born on and after that day, within the United States and their
territories, shall be born free. 2d. That, with exception of Florida,
there shall henceforth never be admitted into this Union any state the
constitution of which shall tolerate within the same the existence of
slavery. 3d That from and after the 4th of July, 1848, there shall be
neither slavery nor slave-trade at the seat of government of the United
States.
Mr. Adams proceeded to state that he had in his possession a paper,
which he desired to present, and on which these resolutions were
founded. It was a petition from John Jay, and forty-three most
respectable citizens of the city of New York. Being here interrupted by
violent cries of "Order!" he at that time refrained from further
pressing the subject.
On the 30th of April, 1839, Mr. Adams delivered before the Historical
Society of New York a discourse entitled "The Jubilee of the
Constitution;" it being the fiftieth year after the inauguration of
George Washington as President of the United States. Of all his
occasional productions, this was, probably, the most labored. In it he
traces the history of the constitution of the United States from the
period antecedent to the American Revolution, through the events of that
war, to the circumstances which led to its adoption, concluding with a
solemn admonition to adhere to the principles of the Declaration of
Independence, practically interwoven into the constitution of the United
States.
In October, 1839, in an address to the inhabitants of Braintree, of
which "Education" was the topic, he traces that of New England to the
Christian religion, of which the Bible was the text-book and foundation,
and the revelation of eternal life. He then illustrated the history of
that religion by recapitulating the difficulties it had to encounter
through ages of persecution; commented upon the ecclesiastical hierarchy
established under Constantine, and the abuses arising from the policy of
the Church of Rome, until their final exposure by Martin Luther, out of
which emanated the Protestant faith. The display of learning, the power
of reasoning, and the suggestive thoughts, in this occasional essay,
exhibit the extent and depth of his studies of the sacred volume, to
which, more than to any other, the strength of his mind had been
devoted.
About this time was published in the newspapers a letter from Mr. Adams
to Dr. Thomas Sewall, concerning his two letters on Phrenology, and
giving his own opinion on that subject in the following characteristic
language: "I have never been able to persuade myself to think of the
_science of Phrenology_ as a _serious_ speculation. I have classed it
with judicial astrology, with alchemy, and with _augury_; and, as
Cicero says he wonders how two Roman augurs could have looked each
other in the face without laughing, I have felt something of the same
surprise that two learned phrenologists can meet without like
temptation. But, as it has been said of Bishop Berkeley's anti-material
system, that he has demonstrated, beyond the possibility of refutation,
what no man in his senses can believe, so, without your assistance, I
should never have been able to encounter the system of thirty-three or
thirty-five faculties of the immortal soul all clustered on the blind
side of the head. I thank you for furnishing me with argument to meet
the doctors who pack up the five senses in thirty-five parcels of the
brain. I hope your lectures will be successful in recalling the sober
sense of the _material_ philosophers to the dignity of an
_imperishable_ mind."
With an urgent request, contained in a letter dated the 28th of June,
1839, for his opinion on the constitutionality and expediency of the
law, then recently sanctioned by two Legislatures of Massachusetts,
called the license law, Mr. Adams declined complying, for reasons stated
at length. He regarded the purpose of the law as "in the highest degree
pure, patriotic, and benevolent." It had, however, given rise to two
evils, which were already manifested. "The first, a spirit of concerted
and determined resistance to its execution. The second, a concerted
effort to turn the dissatisfaction of the people with the law into a
political engine against the administration of the state. There is no
duty more impressive upon the Legislature than that of accommodating the
exercise of its power to the spirit of those over whom it is to operate.
Abstract right, deserving as it is of the profound reverence of every
ruler over men, is yet not the principle which must guide and govern his
conduct; and whoever undertakes to make it exclusively his guide will
soon find in the community a resistance that will overrule him and his
principles. The Supreme Ruler of the universe declares himself, in the
holy Scriptures, that, in dealing with the prevarications of his chosen
people, he sometimes gave them statutes which were _not good_."
On the 2d December, 1839, at the opening of the Twenty-Sixth Congress,
the clerk began to call the roll of the members, according to custom.
When he came to New Jersey, he stated that five seats of the members
from that state were contested, and that, not feeling himself authorized
to decide the question, he should pass over those names, and proceed
with the call. This gave rise to a general and violent debate on the
steps to be pursued under such circumstances. It was declared by Mr.
Adams that the proceeding of the clerk was evidently preconcerted to
exclude the five members from New Jersey from voting at the organization
of the house. Innumerable questions were raised, but the house could not
agree upon the mode of proceeding, and from the 2d to the 5th it
remained in a perfectly disorganized state, and in apparently
inextricable confusion. The remainder of the scene is thus described, in
the newspapers, by one apparently an eye-witness:
"Mr. Adams, from the opening of this scene of confusion and anarchy,
had maintained a profound silence. He appeared to be engaged most of
the time in writing. To a common observer he seemed to be reckless
of everything around him. But nothing, not the slightest incident,
escaped him.
"The fourth day of the struggle had now commenced. Mr. Hugh A.
Garland, the clerk, was directed to call the roll again. He
commenced with Maine, as usual in those days, and was proceeding
towards Massachusetts. I turned and saw that Mr. Adams was ready to
get the floor at the earliest moment possible. His eye was riveted
on the clerk, his hands clasped the front edge of his desk, where he
always placed them to assist him in rising. He looked, in the
language of Otway, like a 'fowler eager for his prey,'
"'New Jersey!' ejaculated Mr. Hugh Garland, 'and--'
"Mr. Adams immediately sprang to the floor.
"'I rise to interrupt the clerk,' was his first exclamation.
"'Silence! Silence!' resounded through the hall. 'Hear him! Hear
him! Hear what he has to say! Hear John Quincy Adams!' was
vociferated on all sides.
"In an instant the most profound stillness reigned throughout the
hall,--you might have heard a leaf of paper fall in any part of
it,--and every eye was riveted on the venerable Nestor of
Massachusetts--the purest of statesmen, and the noblest of men! He
paused for a moment, and, having given Mr. Garland a withering look,
he proceeded to address the multitude.
"'It was not my intention,' said he, 'to take any part in these
extraordinary proceedings. I had hoped this house would succeed in
organizing itself; that a speaker and clerk would be elected, and
that the ordinary business of legislation would be progressed in.
This is not the time or place to discuss the merits of conflicting
claimants from New Jersey. That subject belongs to the House of
Representatives, which, by the constitution, is made the ultimate
arbiter of the qualifications of its members. But what a spectacle
we here present! We degrade and disgrace our constituents and the
country. We do not and cannot organize; and why? Because the clerk
of this house--the mere clerk, whom we create, whom we employ, and
whose existence depends upon our will--usurps the _throne_, and
sets us, the representatives, the vicegerents of the whole American
people, at defiance, and holds us in contempt! And what is this
clerk of yours? Is he to suspend, by his mere negative, the
functions of government, and put an end to this Congress? He
refuses to call the roll! It is in your power to compel him to call
it, if he will not do it voluntarily.' [Here he was interrupted by
a member, who said that he was authorized to say that compulsion
could not reach the clerk, who had avowed that he would resign
rather than call the State of New Jersey.] 'Well, sir, let him
resign,' continued Mr. Adams, 'and we may possibly discover some
way by which we can get along without the aid of his all-powerful
talent, learning, and genius!
"'If we cannot organize in any other way,--if this clerk of yours
will not consent to our discharging the trust confided to us by our
constituents,--then let us imitate the example of the Virginia House
of Burgesses, which, when the colonial Governor Dinwiddie ordered it
to disperse, refused to obey the imperious and insulting mandate,
and, like men--'
"The multitude could not contain or repress their enthusiasm any
longer, but saluted the eloquent and indignant speaker, and
interrupted him with loud and deafening cheers, which seemed to
shake the capitol to its centre. The very genii of applause and
enthusiasm seemed to float in the atmosphere of the hall, and every
heart expanded with an indescribable feeling of pride and
exultation. The turmoil, the darkness, the very 'chaos of anarchy,'
which had for three successive days pervaded the American Congress,
was dispelled by the magic, the talismanic eloquence, of a single
man; and once more the wheels of government and legislation were put
in motion.
"Having, by this powerful appeal, brought the yet unorganized
assembly to a perception of its hazardous position, he submitted a
motion requiring the acting clerk to call the roll. Accordingly Mr.
Adams was interrupted by a burst of voices demanding, 'How shall the
question be put?' 'Who will put the question?' The voice of Mr.
Adams was heard above the tumult: 'I intend to put the question
myself!' That word brought order out of chaos. There was the master
mind.
"As soon as the multitude had recovered itself, and the excitement
of irrepressible enthusiasm had abated, Mr. Richard Barnwell Rhett,
of South Carolina, leaped upon one of the desks, waved his hand, and
exclaimed: 'I move that the Honorable John Quincy Adams take the
chair of the Speaker of the house, and officiate as presiding
officer till the house be organized by the election of its
constitutional officers. As many as are agreed to this will say Ay;
those--'
"He had not an opportunity to complete the sentence, 'those who are
not agreed will say No;' for one universal, deafening, thundering
AY responded to the nomination.
"Hereupon it was moved and ordered that Lewis Williams, of North
Carolina, and Richard Barnwell Rhett, conduct John Quincy Adams to
the chair.
"Well did Mr. Wise, of Virginia, say: 'Sir, I regard it as the
proudest hour of your life; and if, when you shall be gathered to
your fathers, I were asked to select the words which, in my
judgment, are best calculated to give at once the character of the
man, I would inscribe upon your tomb this sentence: _I will put
the question myself_.'"