John Quincy Adams Part 7

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

"Whether the war be servile, civil, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations. I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the States where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the United States but the commander of the army has power to order (p. 264) the universal emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves."

This declaration of const.i.tutional doctrine was made with much positiveness and emphasis. There for many years the matter rested. The principle had been clearly a.s.serted by Mr. Adams, angrily repudiated by the South, and in the absence of the occasion of war there was nothing more to be done in the matter. But when the exigency at last came, and the government of the United States was brought face to face with by far the gravest const.i.tutional problem presented by the great rebellion, then no other solution presented itself save that which had been suggested twenty years earlier in the days of peace by Mr. Adams.

It was in pursuance of the doctrine to which he thus gave the first utterance that slavery was forever abolished in the United States.

Extracts from the last-quoted speech long stood as the motto of the "Liberator;" and at the time of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation Mr.

Adams was regarded as the chief and sufficient authority for an act so momentous in its effect, so infinitely useful in a matter of national extremity. But it was evidently a theory which had taken strong hold upon him. Besides the foregoing speeches there is an explicit statement of it in a letter which he wrote from Washington April 4, 1836, to Hon. Solomon Lincoln, of Hingham, a friend and (p. 265) const.i.tuent. After touching upon other topics he says:--

"The new pretensions of the slave representation in Congress of a right to refuse to receive pet.i.tions, and that Congress have no const.i.tutional power to abolish slavery or the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, forced upon me so much of the discussion as I did take upon me, but in which you are well aware I did not and could not speak a tenth part of my mind. I did not, for example, start the question whether by the law of G.o.d and of nature man can hold _property_, HEREDITARY property, in man. I did not start the question whether in the event of a servile insurrection and war, Congress would not have complete unlimited control over the whole subject of slavery, even to the emanc.i.p.ation of all the slaves in the State where such insurrection should break out, and for the suppression of which the freemen of Plymouth and Norfolk counties, Ma.s.sachusetts, should be called by Acts of Congress to pour out their treasures and to shed their blood. Had I spoken my mind on these two points, the st.u.r.diest of the abolitionists would have disavowed the sentiments of their champion."

The projected annexation of Texas, which became a battle-ground whereon the tide of conflict swayed so long and so fiercely to and fro, profoundly stirred Mr. Adams's indignation. It is, he said, "a question of far deeper root and more overshadowing branches than (p. 266) any or all others that now agitate this country.... I had opened it by my speech ... on the 25th May, 1836--by far the most noted speech that I ever made." He based his opposition to the annexation upon const.i.tutional objections, and on September 18, 1837, offered a resolution that "the power of annexing the people of any independent State to this Union is a power not delegated by the Const.i.tution of the United States to their Congress or to any department of their government, but reserved to the people." The Speaker refused to receive the motion, or even allow it to be read, on the ground that it was not in order. Mr. Adams repeated substantially the same motion in June, 1838, then adding "that any attempt by act of Congress or by treaty to annex the Republic of Texas to this Union would be an usurpation of power which it would be the right and the duty of the free people of the Union to resist and annul." The story of his opposition to this measure is, however, so interwoven with his general antagonism to slavery, that there is little occasion for treating them separately.[9]

[Footnote 9: In an address to his const.i.tuents in September, 1842, Mr. Adams spoke of his course concerning Texas. Having mentioned Mr. Van Buren's reply, declining the formal proposition made in 1837 by the Republic of Texas for annexation to the United States, he continued: "But the slave-breeding pa.s.sion for the annexation was not to be so disconcerted. At the ensuing session of Congress numerous pet.i.tions and memorials for and against the annexation were presented to the House, ... and were referred to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, who, without ever taking them into consideration, towards the close of the session asked to be discharged from the consideration of them all. It was on this report that the debate arose, in which I disclosed the whole system of duplicity and perfidy towards Mexico, which had marked the Jackson Administration from its commencement to its close. It silenced the clamors for the annexation of Texas to this Union for three years till the catastrophe of the Van Buren Administration. The people of the free States were lulled into the belief that the whole project was abandoned, and that they should hear no more of slave-trade cravings for the annexation of Texas.

Had Harrison lived they would have heard no more of them to this day, but no sooner was John Tyler installed in the President's House than nullification and Texas and war with Mexico rose again upon the surface, with eye steadily fixed upon the Polar Star of Southern slave-dealing supremacy in the government of the Union."]

People sometimes took advantage of his avowed principles (p. 267) concerning freedom of pet.i.tion to put him in positions which they thought would embarra.s.s him or render him ridiculous. Not much success, however, attended these foolish efforts of shallow wits. It was not easy to disconcert him or to take him at disadvantage. July 28, 1841, he presented a paper of this character coming from sundry Virginians and praying that all the free colored population should be sold or expelled from the country. He simply stated as he handed in the sheet that nothing could be more abhorrent to him than this (p. 268) prayer, and that his respect for the right of pet.i.tion was his only motive for presenting this. It was suspended under the "gag"

rule, and its promoters, unless very easily amused, must have been sadly disappointed with the fate and effect of their joke. On March 5, 1838, he received from Rocky Mount in Virginia a letter and pet.i.tion praying that the House would arraign at its bar and forever expel John Quincy Adams. He presented both doc.u.ments, with a resolution asking that they be referred to a committee for investigation and report. His enemies in the House saw that he was sure to have the best of the sport if the matter should be pursued, and succeeded in laying it on the table. Waddy Thompson thoughtfully improved the opportunity to mention to Mr. Adams that he also had received a pet.i.tion, "numerously signed," praying for Mr. Adams's expulsion, but had never presented it. In the following May Mr. Adams presented another pet.i.tion of like tenor. Dromgoole said that he supposed it was a "quiz," and that he would move to lay it on the table, "unless the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts wished to give it another direction." Mr. Adams said that "the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts cared very little about it,"

and it found the limbo of the "table."

To this same period belongs the memorable tale of Mr. Adams's (p. 269) attempt to present a pet.i.tion from slaves. On February 6, 1837, he brought in some two hundred abolition pet.i.tions. He closed with one against the slave-trade in the District of Columbia purporting to be signed by "nine ladies of Fredericksburg, Virginia," whom he declined to name because, as he said, in the present disposition of the country, "he did not know what might happen to them if he did name them." Indeed, he added, he was not sure that the pet.i.tion was genuine; he had said, when he began to present his pet.i.tions, that some among them were so peculiar that he was in doubt as to their genuineness, and this fell within the description. Apparently he had concluded and was about to take his seat, when he quickly caught up another sheet, and said that he held in his hand a paper concerning which he should wish to have the decision of the Speaker before presenting it. It purported to be a pet.i.tion from twenty-two slaves, and he would like to know whether it came within the rule of the House concerning pet.i.tions relating to slavery. The Speaker, in manifest confusion, said that he could not answer the question until he knew the contents of the doc.u.ment. Mr. Adams, remarking that "it was one of those pet.i.tions which had occurred to his mind as not being what (p. 270) it purported to be," proposed to send it up to the Chair for inspection. Objection was made to this, and the Speaker said that the circ.u.mstances were so extraordinary that he would take the sense of the House. That body, at first inattentive, now became interested, and no sooner did a knowledge of what was going on spread among those present than great excitement prevailed. Members were hastily brought in from the lobbies; many tried to speak, and from parts of the hall cries of "Expel him! Expel him!" were heard. For a brief interval no one of the enraged Southerners was equal to the unforeseen emergency.

Mr. Haynes moved the rejection of the pet.i.tion. Mr. Lewis deprecated this motion, being of opinion that the House must inflict punishment on the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts. Mr. Haynes thereupon withdrew a motion which was so obviously inadequate to the vindictive gravity of the occasion. Mr. Grantland stood ready to second a motion to punish Mr. Adams, and Mr. Lewis said that if punishment should not be meted out it would "be better for the representatives from the slave-holding States to go home at once." Mr. Alford said that so soon as the pet.i.tion should be presented he would move that it should "be taken from the House and burned." At last Mr. Thompson got a resolution (p. 271) into shape as follows:--

"That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by the attempt just made by him to introduce a pet.i.tion purporting on its face to be from slaves, has been guilty of a gross disrespect to this House, and that he be instantly brought to the bar to receive the severe censure of the Speaker."

In supporting this resolution he said that Mr. Adams's action was in gross and wilful violation of the rules of the House and an insult to its members. He even threatened criminal proceedings before the grand jury of the District of Columbia, saying that if that body had the "proper intelligence and spirit" people might "yet see an incendiary brought to condign punishment." Mr. Haynes, not satisfied with Mr.

Thompson's resolution, proposed a subst.i.tute to the effect that Mr.

Adams had "rendered himself justly liable to the severest censure of this House and is censured accordingly." Then there ensued a little more excited speech-making and another resolution, that Mr. Adams,

"by his attempt to introduce into this House a pet.i.tion from slaves for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, has committed an outrage on the feelings of the people of a large portion of this Union; a flagrant contempt on the dignity (p. 272) of this House; and, by extending to slaves a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly incites the slave population to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called to the bar of the House and be censured by the Speaker."

Mr. Lewis remained of opinion that it might be best for the Southern members to go home,--a proposition which afterwards drew forth a flaming speech from Mr. Alford, who, far from inclining to go home, was ready to stay "until this fair city is a field of Waterloo and this beautiful Potomac a river of blood." Mr. Patton, of Virginia, was the first to speak a few words to bring members to their senses, pertinently asking whether Mr. Adams had "attempted to offer" this pet.i.tion, and whether it did indeed pray for the abolition of slavery.

It might be well, he suggested, for his friends to be sure of their facts before going further. Then at last Mr. Adams, who had not at all lost his head in the general hurly-burly, rose and said, that amid these numerous resolutions charging him with "high crimes and misdemeanors" and calling him to the bar of the House to answer for the same, he had thought it proper to remain silent until the House should take some action; that he did not suppose that, if he should be brought to the bar of the House, he should be "struck mute by the (p. 273) previous question" before he should have been given an opportunity to "say a word or two" in his own defence. As to the facts: "I did not present the pet.i.tion," he said, "and I appeal to the Speaker to say that I did not.... I intended to take the decision of the Speaker before I went one step towards presenting or offering to present that pet.i.tion." The contents of the pet.i.tion, should the House ever choose to read it, he continued, would render necessary some amendments at least in the last resolution, since the prayer was that slavery should _not_ be abolished!" The gentleman from Alabama may perchance find, that the object of this pet.i.tion is precisely what he desires to accomplish; and that these slaves who have sent this paper to me are his auxiliaries instead of being his opponents."

These remarks caused some discomfiture among the Southern members, who were glad to have time for deliberation given them by a maundering speech from Mr. Mann, of New York, who talked about "the deplorable spectacle shown off every pet.i.tion day by the honorable member from Ma.s.sachusetts in presenting the abolition pet.i.tions of his infatuated friends and const.i.tuents," charged Mr. Adams with running counter to the sense of the whole country with a "violence paralleled only (p. 274) by the revolutionary madness of desperation," and twitted him with his political friendlessness, with his age, and with the insinuation of waning faculties and judgment. This little phial having been emptied, Mr. Thompson arose and angrily a.s.sailed Mr. Adams for contemptuously trifling with the House, which charge he based upon the entirely unproved a.s.sumption that the pet.i.tion was not a genuine doc.u.ment. He concluded by presenting new resolutions better adapted to the recent development of the case:--

"1. That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by an effort to present a pet.i.tion from slaves, has committed a gross contempt of this House.

"2. That the member from Ma.s.sachusetts above-named, by creating the impression and leaving the House under such impression, that the said pet.i.tion was for the abolition of slavery, when he knew that it was not, has trifled with the House.

"3. That the Hon. John Quincy Adams receive the censure of the House for his conduct referred to in the preceding resolutions."

Mr. Pinckney said that the avowal by Mr. Adams that he had in his possession the pet.i.tion of slaves was an admission of communication with slaves, and so was evidence of collusion with them; and that Mr.

Adams had thus rendered himself indictable for aiding and abetting (p. 275) insurrection. A _fortiori_, then, was he not amenable to the censure of the House? Mr. Haynes, of Georgia, forgetting that the pet.i.tion had not been presented, announced his intention of moving that it should be rejected subject only to a permission for its withdrawal; another member suggested that, if the pet.i.tion should be disposed of by burning, it would be well to commit to the same combustion the gentleman who presented it.

On the next day some more resolutions were ready, prepared by Dromgoole, who in his sober hours was regarded as the best parliamentarian in the Southern party. These were, that Mr. Adams

"by stating in his place that he had in his possession a paper purporting to be a pet.i.tion from slaves, and inquiring if it came within the meaning of a resolution heretofore adopted (as preliminary to its presentation), has given color to the idea that slaves have the right of pet.i.tion and of his readiness to be their organ; and that for the same he deserves the censure of the House.

"That the aforesaid John Quincy Adams receive a censure from the Speaker in the presence of the House of Representatives."

Mr. Alford, in advocating these resolutions, talked about "this awful crisis of our beloved country." Mr. Robertson, though opposing (p. 276) the resolutions, took pains "strongly to condemn ... the conduct of the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts." Mr. Adams's colleague, Mr. Lincoln, spoke in his behalf, so also did Mr. Evans, of Maine; and Caleb Cushing made a powerful speech upon his side. Otherwise than this Mr.

Adams was left to carry on the contest single-handed against the numerous array of a.s.sailants, all incensed and many fairly savage. Yet it is a striking proof of the dread in which even the united body of hot-blooded Southerners stood of this hard fighter from the North, that as the debate was drawing to a close, after they had all said their say and just before his opportunity came for making his elaborate speech of defence, they suddenly and opportunely became ready to content themselves with a mild resolution, which condemned generally the presentation of pet.i.tions from slaves, and, for the disposal of this particular case, recited that Mr. Adams had "solemnly disclaimed all design of doing anything disrespectful to the House,"

and had "avowed his intention not to offer to present" to the House the pet.i.tion of this kind held by him; that "therefore all further proceedings in regard to his conduct do now cease." A sneaking effort by Mr. Vanderpoel to close Mr. Adams's mouth by moving the (p. 277) previous question involved too much cowardice to be carried; and so on February 9 the sorely bated man was at last able to begin his final speech. He conducted his defence with singular spirit and ability, but at too great length to admit of even a sketch of what he said. He claimed the right of pet.i.tion for slaves, and established it so far as argument can establish anything. He alleged that all he had done was to ask a question of the Speaker, and if he was to be censured for so doing, then how much more, he asked, was the Speaker deserving of censure who had even put the same question to the House, and given as his reason for so doing that it was not only of novel but of difficult import! He repudiated the idea that any member of the House could be held by a grand jury to respond for words spoken in debate, and recommended the gentlemen who had indulged in such preposterous threats "to study a little the first principles of civil liberty,"

excoriating them until they actually arose and tried to explain away their own language. He cast infinite ridicule upon the unhappy expression of Dromgoole, "giving color to an idea." Referring to the difficulty which he encountered by reason of the variety and disorder of the resolutions and charges against him with which "gentlemen from the South had pounced down upon him like so many eagles upon a (p. 278) dove,"--there was an exquisite sarcasm in the simile!--he said: "When I take up one idea, before I can give color to the idea, it has already changed its form and presents itself for consideration under other colors.... What defence can be made against this new crime of giving color to ideas?" As for trifling with the House by presenting a pet.i.tion which in the course of debate had become pretty well known and acknowledged to be a hoax designed to lead Mr. Adams into a position of embarra.s.sment and danger, he disclaimed any such motive, reminding members that he had given warning, when beginning to present his pet.i.tions, that he was suspicious that some among them might not be genuine.[10] But while denying all intention of trifling with the House, he rejected the mercy extended to him in the last of the (p. 279) long series of resolutions before that body. "I disclaim not," he said, "any particle of what I have done, not a single word of what I have said do I unsay; nay, I am ready to do and to say the same to-morrow." He had no notion of aiding in making a loophole through which his blundering enemies might escape, even though he himself should be accorded the privilege of crawling through it with them. At times during his speech "there was great agitation in the House," but when he closed no one seemed ambitious to reply. His enemies had learned anew a lesson, often taught to them before and often to be impressed upon them again, that it was perilous to come to close quarters with Mr. Adams. They gave up all idea of censuring him, and were content to apply a very mild emollient to their own smarting wounds in the shape of a resolution, to the effect that slaves did not possess the right of pet.i.tion secured by the Const.i.tution to the people of the United States.

[Footnote 10: Mr. Adams afterward said: "I believed the pet.i.tion signed by female names to be genuine.... I had suspicions that the other, purporting to be from slaves, came really from the hand of a master who had prevailed on his slaves to sign it, that they might have the appearance of imploring the members from the North to cease offering pet.i.tions for their emanc.i.p.ation, which could have no other tendency than to aggravate their servitude, and of being so impatient under the operation of pet.i.tions in their favor as to pray that the Northern members who should persist in presenting them should be expelled." It was a part of the prayer of the pet.i.tion that Mr. Adams should be expelled if he should continue to present abolition pet.i.tions.]

In the winter of 1842-43 the questions arising out of the affair of the Creole rendered the position then held by Mr. Adams at the head of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs exceedingly distasteful to the slave-holders. On January 21, 1842, a somewhat singular (p. 280) manifestation of this feeling was made when Mr. Adams himself presented a pet.i.tion from Georgia praying for his removal from this Chairmanship. Upon this he requested to be heard in his own behalf.

The Southern party, not sanguine of any advantage from debating the matter, tried to lay it on the table. The pet.i.tion was alleged by Habersham, of Georgia, to be undoubtedly another hoax. But Mr. Adams, loath to lose a good opportunity, still claimed to be heard on the charges made against him by the "infamous slave-holders." Mr. Smith, of Virginia, said that the House had lately given Mr. Adams leave to defend himself against the charge of monomania, and asked whether he was doing so. Some members cried "Yes! Yes!"; others shouted "No! he is establishing the fact." The wrangling was at last brought to an end by the Speaker's declaration, that the pet.i.tion must lie over for the present. But the scene had been only the prelude to one much longer, fiercer, and more exciting. No sooner was the doc.u.ment thus temporarily disposed of than Mr. Adams rose and presented the pet.i.tion of forty-five citizens of Haverhill, Ma.s.sachusetts, praying the House "immediately to adopt measures peaceably to dissolve the union of these States," for the alleged cause of the incompatibility (p. 281) between free and slave-holding communities. He moved "its reference to a select committee, with instructions to report an answer to the pet.i.tioners showing the reasons why the prayer of it ought not to be granted."

In a moment the House was aflame with excitement. The numerous members who hated Mr. Adams thought that at last he was experiencing the divinely sent madness which foreruns destruction. Those who sought his political annihilation felt that the appointed and glorious hour of extinction had come; those who had writhed beneath the castigation of his invective exulted in the near revenge. While one said that the pet.i.tion should never have been brought within the walls of the House, and another wished to burn it in the presence of the members, Mr.

Gilmer, of Virginia, offered a resolution, that in presenting the pet.i.tion Mr. Adams "had justly incurred the censure of the House."

Some objection was made to this resolution as not being in order; but Mr. Adams said that he hoped that it would be received and debated and that an opportunity would be given him to speak in his own defence; "especially as the gentleman from Virginia had thought proper to play second fiddle to his colleague[11] from Accomac." Mr. Gilmer retorted that he "played second fiddle to no man. He was no fiddler, but (p. 282) was endeavoring to prevent the music of him who,

'In the s.p.a.ce of one revolving moon, Was statesman, poet, fiddler, and buffoon.'"

The resolution was then laid on the table. The House rose, and Mr.

Adams went home and noted in his Diary, "evening in meditation," for which indeed he had abundant cause. On the following day Thomas F.

Marshall, of Kentucky, offered a subst.i.tute for Gilmer's resolution.

This new fulmination had been prepared in a caucus of forty members of the slave-holding party, and was long and carefully framed. Its preamble recited, in substance, that a pet.i.tion to dissolve the Union, proposing to Congress to destroy that which the several members had solemnly and officially sworn to support, was a "high breach of privilege, a contempt offered to this House, a direct proposition to the Legislature and each member of it to commit perjury, and involving necessarily in its execution and its consequences the destruction of our country and the crime of high treason:" wherefore it was to be resolved that Mr. Adams, in presenting a pet.i.tion for dissolution, had "offered the deepest indignity to the House" and "an insult to the people;" that if "this outrage" should be "permitted to pa.s.s unrebuked and unpunished" he would have "disgraced his country ... in the (p. 283) eyes of the whole world;" that for this insult and this "wound at the Const.i.tution and existence of his country, the peace, the security and liberty of the people of these States" he "might well be held to merit expulsion from the national councils;" and that "the House deem it an act of grace and mercy when they only inflict upon him their severest censure;" that so much they must do "for the maintenance of their own purity and dignity; for the rest they turned him over to his own conscience and the indignation of all true American citizens."

[Footnote 11: Henry A. Wise.]

These resolutions were then advocated by Mr. Marshall at great length and with extreme bitterness. Mr. Adams replied shortly, stating that he should wish to make his full defence at a later stage of the debate. Mr. Wise followed in a personal and acrimonious harangue; Mr.

Everett[12] gave some little a.s.sistance to Mr. Adams, and the House again adjourned. The following day Wise continued his speech, very elaborately. When he closed, Mr. Adams, who had "determined not to interrupt him till he had discharged his full cargo of filthy invective,"

rose to "make a preliminary point." He questioned the right of the House to entertain Marshall's resolutions since the preamble a.s.sumed him to be guilty of the crimes of subornation of perjury and (p. 284) treason, and the resolutions themselves censured him as if he had been found guilty; whereas in fact he had not been tried upon these charges and of course had not been convicted. If he was to be brought to trial upon them he a.s.serted his right to have the proceedings conducted before a jury of his peers, and that the House was not a tribunal having this authority. But if he was to be tried for contempt, for which alone he could lawfully be tried by the House, still there were an hundred members sitting on its benches who were morally disqualified to judge him, who could not give him an impartial trial, because they were prejudiced and the question was one "on which their personal, pecuniary, and most sordid interests were at stake." Such considerations, he said, ought to prevent many gentlemen from voting, as Mr. Wise had avowed that they would prevent him. Here Wise interrupted to disavow that he was influenced by any such reasons, but rather, he said, by the "personal loathing, dread, and contempt I feel for the man." Mr. Adams, continuing after this pleasant interjection, admitted that he was in the power of the majority, who might try him against law and condemn him against right if they would.

[Footnote 12: Horace Everett, of Vermont.]

"If they say they will try me, they must try me. If they (p. 285) say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say that in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain and cast away their mercy; and I ask them if they will come to such a trial and expel me. I defy them. I have const.i.tuents to go to who will have something to say if this House expels me. Nor will it be long before the gentlemen will see me here again."

Such was the fierce temper and indomitable courage of this inflexible old man! He flung contempt in the face of those who had him wholly in their power, and in the same breath in which he acknowledged that power he dared them to use it. He charged Wise with the guilt of innocent blood, in connection with certain transactions in a duel, and exasperated that gentleman into crying out that the "charge made by the gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts was as base and black a lie as the traitor was base and black who uttered it." When he was asked by the Speaker to put his point of order in writing,--his own request to the like effect in another case having been refused shortly before,--he tauntingly congratulated that gentleman "upon his discovery of the expediency of having points of order reduced to writing--a favor which he had repeatedly denied to me." When Mr. Wise was speaking, "I interrupted him occasionally," says Mr. Adams, "sometimes to (p. 286) provoke him into absurdity." As usual he was left to fight out his desperate battle substantially single-handed. Only Mr. Everett occasionally helped him a very little; while one or two others who spoke against the resolutions were careful to explain that they felt no personal good will towards Mr. Adams. But he faced the odds courageously. It was no new thing for him to be pitted alone against a "solid South." Outside the walls of the House he had some sympathy and some a.s.sistance tendered him by individuals, among others by Rufus Choate then in the Senate, and by his own colleagues from Ma.s.sachusetts. This support aided and cheered him somewhat, but could not prevent substantially the whole burden of the labor and brunt of the contest from bearing upon him alone. Among the external manifestations of feeling, those of hostility were naturally largely in the ascendant. The newspapers of Washington--the "Globe" and the "National Intelligencer"--which reported the debates, daily filled their columns with all the abuse and invective which was poured forth against him, while they gave the most meagre statements, or none at all, of what he said in his own defence. Among other amenities he received from North Carolina an anonymous letter threatening him with a.s.sa.s.sination, having also an engraved portrait of him with the (p. 287) mark of a rifle-ball in the forehead, and the motto "to stop the music of John Quincy Adams," etc., etc. This missive he read and displayed in the House, but it was received with profound indifference by men who would not have greatly objected to the execution of the barbarous threat.

The prolonged struggle cost him deep anxiety and sleepless nights, which in the declining years of a laborious life told hardly upon his aged frame. But against all odds of numbers and under all disadvantages of circ.u.mstances the past repeated itself, and Mr. Adams alone won a victory over all the cohorts of the South. Several attempts had been made during the debate to lay the whole subject on the table. Mr. Adams said that he would consent to this simply because his defence would be a very long affair, and he did not wish to have the time of the House consumed and the business of the nation brought to a stand solely for the consideration of his personal affairs. These propositions failing, he began his speech and soon was making such headway that even his adversaries were constrained to see that the opportunity which they had conceived to be within their grasp was eluding them, as had so often happened before. Accordingly on February 7 the motion to "lay the whole subject on the table forever" was (p. 288) renewed and carried by one hundred and six votes to ninety-three.

The House then took up the original pet.i.tion and refused to receive it by one hundred and sixty-six to forty. No sooner was this consummation reached than the irrepressible champion rose to his feet and proceeded with his budget of anti-slavery pet.i.tions, of which he "presented nearly two hundred, till the House adjourned."

Within a very short time there came further and convincing proof that Mr. Adams was victor. On February 26 he writes: "D. D. Barnard told me he had received a pet.i.tion from his District, signed by a small number of very respectable persons, praying for a dissolution of the Union.

He said he did not know what to do with it. I dined with him." By March 14 this dinner bore fruit. Mr. Barnard had made up his mind "what to do with it." He presented it, with a motion that it be referred to a select committee with instructions to report adversely to its prayer. The well-schooled House now took the presentation without a ripple of excitement, and was content with simply voting not to receive the pet.i.tion.

In the midst of the toil and anxiety imposed upon Mr. Adams by this effort to censure and disgrace him, the scheme, already referred to, for displacing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on (p. 289) Foreign Affairs had been actively prosecuted. He was notified that the Southern members had formed a cabal for removing him and putting Caleb Cushing in his place. The plan was, however, temporarily checked, and so soon as Mr. Adams had triumphed in the House the four Southern members of the committee sent to the House a paper begging to be excused from further services on the committee, "because from recent occurrences it was doubtful whether the House would remove the chairman, and they were unwilling to serve with one in whom they had no confidence." The fugitives were granted, "by a shout of acclamation," the excuse which they sought for so welcome a reason, and the same was also done for a fifth member. Three more of the same party, nominated to fill these vacancies, likewise asked to be excused, and were so. Their letters preferring this request were "so insulting personally" to Mr. Adams as to const.i.tute "gross breaches of privilege." "The Speaker would have refused to receive or present them had they referred to any other man in the House." They were published, but Mr. Adams, after some hesitation, determined not to give them the importance which would result from any public notice in the House upon his part. He could afford to keep silence, and judged wisely in doing so.

Amid all the animosity and rancor entertained towards Mr. Adams, (p. 290) there yet lurked a degree of respect for his courage, honesty, and ability which showed itself upon occasion, doubtless not a little to the surprise of the members themselves who were hardly conscious that they entertained such sentiments until startled into a manifestation of them. An eminent instance of this is to be found in the story of the troubled days preceding the organization of the twenty-sixth Congress. On December 2, 1839, the members elect of that body came together in Washington, with the knowledge that the seats of five gentlemen from New Jersey, who brought with them the regular gubernatorial certificate of their election, would be contested by five other claimants. According to custom Garland, clerk of the last House, called the a.s.semblage to order and began the roll-call. When he came to New Jersey he called the name of one member from that State, and then said that there were five other seats which were contested, and that not feeling authorized to decide the dispute he would pa.s.s over the names of the New Jersey members and proceed with the roll till the House should be formed, when the question could be decided.

Plausible as appeared this abstention from an exercise of authority in so grave a dispute, it was nevertheless really an a.s.sumption and (p. 291) not a deprecation of power, and as such was altogether unjustifiable.

The clerk's sole business was to call the names of those persons who presented the usual formal credentials; he had no right to take cognizance that the seats of any such persons might be the subject of a contest, which could properly be inst.i.tuted, conducted, and determined only before and by the House itself when organized. But his course was not innocent of a purpose. So evenly was the House divided that the admission or exclusion of these five members in the first instance would determine the political complexion of the body. The members holding the certificates were Whigs; if the clerk could keep them out until the organization of the House should be completed, then the Democrats would control that organization, would elect their Speaker, and through him would make up the committees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry A. Wise]

Naturally enough this arrogation of power by the clerk, the motives and consequences of which were abundantly obvious, raised a terrible storm. The debate continued till four o'clock in the afternoon, when a motion was made to adjourn. The clerk said that he could put no question, not even of adjournment, till the House should be formed.

But there was a general cry to adjourn, and the clerk declared the House adjourned. Mr. Adams went home and wrote in his Diary that (p. 292) the clerk's "two decisions form together an insurmountable objection to the transaction of any business, and an impossibility of organizing the House.... The most curious part of the case is, that his own election as clerk depends upon the exclusion of the New Jersey members." The next day was consumed in a fierce debate as to whether the clerk should be allowed to read an explanatory statement. Again the clerk refused to put the question of adjournment, but, "upon inspection," declared an adjournment. Some called out "a count! a count!" while most rushed out of the hall, and Wise cried loudly, "Now we are a mob!" The next day there was more violent debating, but no progress towards a decision. Various party leaders offered resolutions, none of which accomplished anything. The condition was ridiculous, disgraceful, and not without serious possibilities of danger. Neither did any light of encouragement break in any quarter.