John Quincy Adams Part 6

Fate, however, had in store for Mr. Adams labors to which he was better suited than those of literature, and tasks to be performed which the nation could ill afford to exchange for an apotheosis of our second President, or even for a respectable but probably not very readable history. The most brilliant and glorious years of his career were yet to be lived. He was to earn in his old age a n.o.ble fame and distinction far transcending any achievement of his youth and middle age, and was to attain the highest pinnacle of his fame after he (p. 224) had left the greatest office of the Government, and during a period for which presumably nothing better had been allotted than that he should tranquilly await the summons of death. It is a striking circ.u.mstance that the fullness of greatness for one who had been Senator, Minister to England, Secretary of State, and President, remained to be won in the comparatively humble position of a Representative in Congress.

CHAPTER III (p. 225)

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

In September, 1830, Mr. Adams notes in his Diary a suggestion made to him that he might if he wished be elected to the national House of Representatives from the Plymouth district. The gentleman who threw out this tentative proposition remarked that in his opinion the acceptance of this position by an ex-President "instead of degrading the individual would elevate the representative character." Mr. Adams replied, that he "had in that respect no scruple whatever. No person could be degraded by serving the people as a Representative in Congress. Nor in my opinion would an ex-President of the United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his town, if elected thereto by the people." A few weeks later his election was accomplished by a flattering vote, the poll showing for him 1817 votes out of 2565, with only 373 for the next candidate. He continued thenceforth to represent this district until his death, a period of about sixteen years. During this time he was occasionally suggested as a candidate for the (p. 226) governors.h.i.+p of the State, but was always reluctant to stand. The feeling between the Freemasons and the anti-Masons ran very high for several years, and once he was prevailed upon to allow his name to be used by the latter party. The result was that there was no election by the people; and as he had been very loath to enter the contest in the beginning, he insisted upon withdrawing from before the legislature.

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

Unfortunately, but of obvious necessity, it is possible to touch only upon the more salient points of this which was really by far the most striking and distinguished portion of his life. To do more than this would involve an explanation of the politics of the country and the measures before Congress much more elaborate than would be possible in this volume. It will be necessary, therefore, to confine ourselves to drawing a picture of him in his character as the great combatant of Southern slavery. In the waging of this mighty conflict we shall see both his mind and his character developing in strength even in these years of his old age, and his traits standing forth in bolder relief than ever before. In his place on the floor of the House of Representatives he was destined to appear a more impressive figure than in any of the higher positions which he had previously (p. 227) filled. There he was to do his greatest work and to win a peculiar and distinctive glory which takes him out of the general throng even of famous statesmen, and ent.i.tles his name to be remembered with an especial reverence. Adequately to sketch his achievements, and so to do his memory the honor which it deserves, would require a pen as eloquent as has been wielded by any writer of our language. I can only attempt a brief and insufficient narrative.

In his conscientious way he was faithful and industrious to a rare degree. He was never absent and seldom late; he bore unflinchingly the burden of severe committee work, and s.h.i.+rked no toil on the plea of age or infirmity. He attended closely to all the business of the House; carefully formed his opinions on every question; never failed to vote except for cause; and always had a sufficient reason independent of party allegiance to sustain his vote. Living in the age of oratory, he earned the name of "the old man eloquent." Yet he was not an orator in the sense in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were orators. He was not a rhetorician; he had neither grace of manner nor a fine presence, neither an imposing delivery, nor even pleasing tones. On the contrary, he was exceptionally lacking in all these (p. 228) qualities. He was short, rotund, and bald; about the time when he entered Congress, complaints become frequent in his Diary of weak and inflamed eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to such an extent that in time he had to use artificial a.s.sistance to steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break, piercing enough to make itself heard, but not agreeable. This hardly seems the picture of an orator; nor was it to any charm of elocution that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that men soon learned that what he said was always well worth hearing. When he entered Congress he had been for much more than a third of a century zealously gathering knowledge in public affairs, and during his career in that body every year swelled the already vast acc.u.mulation.

Moreover, listeners were always sure to get a bold and an honest utterance and often pretty keen words from him, and he never spoke to an inattentive audience or to a thin house. Whether pleased or incensed by what he said, the Representatives at least always listened to it. He was by nature a hard fighter, and by the circ.u.mstances of his course in Congress this quality was stimulated to such a degree that parliamentary history does not show his equal as a gladiator. (p. 229) His power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and merciless in his use of it. Theoretically he disapproved of sarcasm, but practically he could not refrain from it. Men winced and cowered before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious with mad rage before his fiercer a.s.saults. Such struggles evidently gave him pleasure, and there was scarce a back in Congress that did not at one time or another feel the score of his cutting lash; though it was the Southerners and the Northern allies of Southerners whom chiefly he singled out for torture. He was irritable and quick to wrath; he himself constantly speaks of the infirmity of his temper, and in his many conflicts his princ.i.p.al concern was to keep it in control. His enemies often referred to it and twitted him with it. Of alliances he was careless, and friends.h.i.+ps he had almost none. But in the creation of enmities he was terribly successful. Not so much at first, but increasingly as years went on, a state of ceaseless, vigilant hostility became his normal condition. From the time when he fairly entered upon the long struggle against slavery, he enjoyed few peaceful days in the House. But he seemed to thrive upon the warfare, and to be never so well pleased as when he was bandying hot words with slave-holders and the Northern supporters of slave-holders. When (p. 230) the air of the House was thick with crimination and abuse he seemed to suck in fresh vigor and spirit from the hate-laden atmosphere. When invective fell around him in showers, he screamed back his retaliation with untiring rapidity and marvellous dexterity of aim. No odds could appall him. With his back set firm against a solid moral principle, it was his joy to strike out at a mult.i.tude of foes. They lost their heads as well as their tempers, but in the extremest moments of excitement and anger Mr. Adams's brain seemed to work with machine-like coolness and accuracy. With flushed face, streaming eyes, animated gesticulation, and cracking voice, he always retained perfect mastery of all his intellectual faculties. He thus became a terrible antagonist, whom all feared, yet fearing could not refrain from attacking, so bitterly and incessantly did he choose to exert his wonderful power of exasperation. Few men could throw an opponent into wild blind fury with such speed and certainty as he could; and he does not conceal the malicious gratification which such feats brought to him. A leader of such fighting capacity, so courageous, with such a magazine of experience and information, and with a character so irreproachable, could have won brilliant victories in public life at the head of (p. 231) even a small band of devoted followers. But Mr. Adams never had and apparently never wanted followers. Other prominent public men were brought not only into collision but into comparison with their contemporaries. But Mr. Adams's individuality was so strong that he can be compared with no one. It was not an individuality of genius nor to any remarkable extent of mental qualities; but rather an individuality of character. To this fact is probably to be attributed his peculiar solitariness. Men touch each other for purposes of attachment through their characters much more than through their minds. But few men, even in agreeing with Mr. Adams, felt themselves in sympathy with him. Occasionally conscience, or invincible logic, or even policy and self-interest, might compel one or another politician to stand beside him in debate or in voting; but no current of fellow feeling ever pa.s.sed between such temporary comrades and him. It was the cold connection of duty or of business. The first instinct of nearly every one was opposition towards him; coalition might be forced by circ.u.mstances but never came by volition. For the purpose of winning immediate successes this was of course a most unfortunate condition of relations.h.i.+ps. Yet it had some compensations: it left such influence as Mr. Adams could exert by steadfastness and (p. 232) argument entirely unweakened by suspicion of hidden motives or personal ends. He had the weight and enjoyed the respect which a sincerity beyond distrust must always command in the long run. Of this we shall see some striking instances.

One important limitation, however, belongs to this statement of solitariness. It was confined to his position in Congress. Outside of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton great numbers of the people, especially in New England, lent him a hearty support and regarded him with friends.h.i.+p and admiration. These men had strong convictions and deep feelings, and their adherence counted for much. Moreover, their numbers steadily increased, and Mr. Adams saw that he was the leader in a cause which engaged the sound sense and the best feeling of the intelligent people of the country, and which was steadily gaining ground. Without such encouragement it is doubtful whether even his persistence would have held out through so long and extreme a trial. The sense of human fellows.h.i.+p was needful to him; he could go without it in Congress, but he could not have gone without it altogether.

Mr. Adams took his seat in the House as a member of the twenty-second Congress in December, 1831. He had been elected by the National Republican, afterward better known as the Whig party, but one of (p. 233) his first acts was to declare that he would be bound by no partisan connection, but would in every matter act independently. This course he regarded as a "duty imposed upon him by his peculiar position," in that he "had spent the greatest portion of his life in the service of the whole nation and had been honored with their highest trust." Many persons had predicted that he would find himself subjected to embarra.s.sments and perhaps to humiliations by reason of his apparent descent in the scale of political dignities. He notes, however, that he encountered no annoyance on this score, but on the contrary he was rather treated with an especial respect. He was made chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, a laborious as well as an important and honorable position at all times, and especially so at this juncture when the rebellious mutterings of South Carolina against the protective tariff were already to be heard rolling and swelling like portentous thunder from the fiery Southern regions. He would have preferred to exchange this post for a place upon the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for whose business he felt more fitted. But he was told that in the impending crisis his ability, authority, and prestige were all likely to be needed in the place allotted to him to aid in the salvation of the country.

The nullification chapter of our history cannot here be entered (p. 234) upon at length, and Mr. Adams's connection with it must be very shortly stated. At the first meeting of his committee he remarks: "A reduction of the duties upon many of the articles in the tariff was understood by all to be the object to be effected;" and a little later he said that he should be disposed to give such aid as he could to any plan for this reduction which the Treasury Department should devise.

"He should certainly not consent to sacrifice the manufacturing interest," he said, "but something of concession would be due from that interest to appease the discontents of the South." He was in a reasonable frame of mind; but unfortunately other people were rapidly ceasing to be reasonable. When Jackson's message of December 4, 1832, was promulgated, showing a disposition to do for South Carolina pretty much all that she demanded, Mr. Adams was bitterly indignant. The message, he said, "recommends a total change in the policy of the Union with reference to the Bank, manufactures, internal improvement, and the public lands. It goes to dissolve the Union into its original elements, and is in substance a complete surrender to the nullifiers of South Carolina." When, somewhat later on, the President lost his temper and flamed out in his famous proclamation to meet the (p. 235) nullification ordinance, he spoke in tones more pleasing to Mr. Adams.

But the ultimate compromise which disposed of the temporary dissension without permanently settling the fundamental question of the const.i.tutional right of nullification was extremely distasteful to him. He was utterly opposed to the concessions which were made while South Carolina still remained contumacious. He was for compelling her to retire altogether from her rebellious position and to repeal her unconst.i.tutional enactments wholly and unconditionally, before one jot should be abated from the obnoxious duties. When the bill for the modification of the tariff was under debate, he moved to strike out all but the enacting clause, and supported his motion in a long speech, insisting that no tariff ought to pa.s.s until it was known "whether there was any measure by which a State could defeat the laws of the Union." In a minority report from his own committee he strongly censured the policy of the Administration. He was for meeting, fighting out, and determining at this crisis the whole doctrine of state rights and secession. "One particle of compromise," he said, with what truth events have since shown clearly enough, would "directly lead to the final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union." In his usual strong and thorough-going fas.h.i.+on he was for (p. 236) persisting in the vigorous and spirited measures, the mere brief declaration of which, though so quickly receded from, won for Jackson a measure of credit greater than he deserved. Jackson was thrown into a great rage by the threats of South Carolina, and replied to them with the same prompt wrath with which he had sometimes resented insults from individuals. But in his cool inner mind he was in sympathy with the demands which that State preferred, and though undoubtedly he would have fought her, had the dispute been forced to that pa.s.s, yet he was quite willing to make concessions, which were in fact in consonance with his own views as well as with hers, in order to avoid that sad conclusion. He was satisfied to have the instant emergency pa.s.s over in a manner rendered superficially creditable to himself by his outburst of temper, under cover of which he sacrificed the substantial matter of principle without a qualm. He shook his fist and shouted defiance in the face of the nullifiers, while Mr. Clay smuggled a comfortable concession into their pockets. Jackson, notwithstanding his belligerent att.i.tude, did all he could to help Clay and was well pleased with the result. Mr. Adams was not. He watched the disingenuous game with disgust. It is certain that if he had still been in the White House, the matter would have had a (p. 237) very different ending, bloodier, it may be, and more painful, but much more conclusive.

For the most part Mr. Adams found himself in opposition to President Jackson's Administration. This was not attributable to any sense of personal hostility towards a successful rival, but to an inevitable antipathy towards the measures, methods, and ways adopted by the General so unfortunately transferred to civil life. Few intelligent persons, and none having the statesman habit of mind, befriended the reckless, violent, eminently unstatesmanlike President. His ultimate weakness in the nullification matter, his opposition to internal improvements, his policy of sacrificing the public lands to individual speculators, his warfare against the Bank of the United States conducted by methods the most unjustifiable, the transaction of the removal of the deposits so disreputable and injurious in all its details, the importation of Mrs. Eaton's visiting-list into the politics and government of the country, the dismissal of the oldest and best public servants as a part of the nefarious system of using public offices as rewards for political aid and personal adherence, the formation from base ingredients of the ign.o.ble "Kitchen Cabinet,"--all these doings, together with much more of the like (p. 238) sort, const.i.tuted a career which could only seem blundering, undignified, and dishonorable in the eyes of a man like Mr. Adams, who regarded statesmans.h.i.+p with the reverence due to the n.o.blest of human callings.

Right as Mr. Adams was generally in his opposition to Jackson, yet once he deserves credit for the contrary course. This was in the matter of our relations with France. The treaty of 1831 secured to this country an indemnity of $5,000,000, which, however, it had never been possible to collect. This procrastination raised Jackson's ever ready ire, and casting to the winds any further dunning, he resolved either to have the money or to fight for it. He sent a message to Congress, recommending that if France should not promptly settle the account, letters of marque and reprisal against her commerce should be issued. He ordered Edward Livingston, minister at Paris, to demand his pa.s.sports and cross over to London. These eminently proper and ultimately effectual measures alarmed the large party of the timid; and the General found himself in danger of extensive desertions even on the part of his usual supporters. But as once before in a season of his dire extremity his courage and vigor had brought the potent aid of Mr. Adams to his side, so now again he came under a heavy debt of (p. 239) grat.i.tude to the same champion. Mr. Adams stood by him with generous gallantry, and by a telling speech in the House probably saved him from serious humiliation and even disaster. The President's style of dealing had roused Mr. Adams's spirit, and he spoke with a fire and vehemence which accomplished the unusual feat of changing the predisposed minds of men too familiar with speech-making to be often much influenced by it in the practical matter of voting. He thought at the time that the success of this speech, brilliant as it appeared, was not unlikely to result in his political ruin. Jackson would befriend and reward his thorough-going partisans at any cost to his own conscience or the public welfare; but the exceptional aid, tendered not from a sense of personal fealty to himself, but simply from the motive of aiding the right cause happening in the especial instance to have been espoused by him, never won from him any token of regard. In November, 1837, Mr. Adams, speaking of his personal relations with the President, said:--

"Though I had served him more than any other living man ever did, and though I supported his Administration at the hazard of my own political destruction, and effected for him at a moment when his own friends were deserting him what no other member of Congress ever accomplished for him--an unanimous vote of the House of (p. 240) Representatives to support him in his quarrel with France; though I supported him in other very critical periods of his Administration, my return from him was insult, indignity, and slander."

Antipathy had at last become the definitive condition of these two men--antipathy both political and personal. At one time a singular effort to reconcile them--probably though not certainly undertaken with the knowledge of Jackson--was made by Richard M. Johnson. This occurred shortly before the inauguration of the war conducted by the President against the Bank of the United States; and judging by the rest of Jackson's behavior at this period, there was probably at least as much of calculation in his motives, if in fact he was cognizant of Johnson's approaches, as there was of any real desire to reestablish the bygone relation of honorable friends.h.i.+p. To the advances thus made Mr. Adams replied a little coldly, not quite repellently, that Jackson, having been responsible for the suspension of personal intercourse, must now be undisguisedly the active party in renewing it. At the same time he professed himself "willing to receive in a spirit of conciliation any advance which in that spirit General Jackson might make." But nothing came of this intrinsically hopeless attempt. On the contrary the two drew rapidly and more widely apart, and (p. 241) entertained concerning each other opinions which grew steadily more unfavorable, and upon Adams's part more contemptuous, as time went on.

Fifteen months later General Jackson made his visit to Boston, and it was proposed that Harvard College should confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. The absurdity of the act, considered simply in itself, was admitted by all. But the argument in its favor was based upon the established usage of the College as towards all other Presidents, so that its omission in this case might seem a personal slight. Mr. Adams, being at the time a member of the Board of Overseers, strongly opposed the proposition, but of course in vain. All that he could do was, for his own individual part, to refuse to be present at the conferring of the degree, giving as the minor reason for his absence, that he could hold no friendly intercourse with the President, but for the major reason that "independent of that, as myself an affectionate child of our Alma Mater, I would not be present to witness her disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name." "A Doctorate of Laws," he said, "for which an apology was necessary, was a cheap honor and ... a sycophantic compliment." After the deed (p. 242) was done, he used to amuse himself by speaking of "Doctor Andrew Jackson." This same eastern tour of Jackson's called forth many other expressions of bitter sarcasm from Adams. The President was ill and unable to carry out the programme of entertainment and exhibition prepared for him: whereupon Mr. Adams remarks:--

"I believe much of his debility is politic.... He is one of our tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity, like John Randolph, who for forty years was always dying. Jackson, ever since he became a mark of public attention, has been doing the same thing.... He is now alternately giving out his chronic diarrhoea and making Warren bleed him for a pleurisy, and posting to Cambridge for a doctorate of laws; mounting the monument of Bunker's Hill to hear a fulsome address and receive two cannon b.a.l.l.s from Edward Everett," etc. "Four fifths of his sickness is trickery, and the other fifth mere fatigue."

This sounds, it must be confessed, a trifle rancorous; but Adams had great excuse for nouris.h.i.+ng rancor towards Jackson.

It is time, however, to return to the House of Representatives. It was not by bearing his share in the ordinary work of that body, important or exciting as that might at one time or another happen to be, that Mr. Adams was to win in Congress that reputation which has been (p. 243) already described as far overshadowing all his previous career. A special task and a peculiar mission were before him. It was a part of his destiny to become the champion of the anti-slavery cause in the national legislature. Almost the first thing which he did after he had taken his seat in Congress was to present "fifteen pet.i.tions signed numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia." He simply moved their reference to the Committee on the District of Columbia, declaring that he should not support that part of the pet.i.tion which prayed for abolition in the District. The time had not yet come when the South felt much anxiety at such manifestations, and these first stones were dropped into the pool without stirring a ripple on the surface. For about four years more we hear little in the Diary concerning slavery. It was not until 1835, when the annexation of Texas began to be mooted, that the North fairly took the alarm, and the irrepressible conflict began to develop. Then at once we find Mr.

Adams at the front. That he had always cherished an abhorrence of slavery and a bitter antipathy to slave-holders as a cla.s.s is sufficiently indicated by many chance remarks scattered through his Diary from early years. Now that a great question, vitally (p. 244) affecting the slave power, divided the country into parties and inaugurated the struggle which never again slept until it was settled forever by the result of the civil war, Mr. Adams at once a.s.sumed the function of leader. His position should be clearly understood; for in the vast labor which lay before the abolition party different tasks fell to different men. Mr. Adams a.s.sumed to be neither an agitator nor a reformer; by necessity of character, training, fitness, and official position, he was a legislator and statesman. The task which accident or destiny allotted to him was neither to preach among the people a crusade against slavery, nor to devise and keep in action the thousand resources which busy men throughout the country were constantly multiplying for the purpose of spreading and increasing a popular hostility towards the great "inst.i.tution." Every great cause has need of its fanatics, its vanguard to keep far in advance of what is for the time reasonable and possible; it has not less need of the wiser and cooler heads to discipline and control the great ma.s.s which is set in motion by the reckless forerunners, to see to the accomplishment of that which the present circ.u.mstances and development of the movement allow to be accomplished. It fell to Mr. Adams to direct the (p. 245) a.s.sault against the outworks which were then vulnerable, and to see that the force then possessed by the movement was put to such uses as would insure definite results instead of being wasted in endeavors which as yet were impossible of achievement. Drawing his duty from his situation and surroundings, he left to others, to younger men and more rhetorical natures, outside the walls of Congress, the business of firing the people and stirring popular opinion and sympathy. He was set to do that portion of the work of abolition which was to be done in Congress, to encounter the mighty efforts which were made to stifle the great humanitarian cry in the halls of the national legislature.

This was quite as much as one man was equal to; in fact, it is certain that no one then in public life except Mr. Adams could have done it effectually. So obvious is this that one cannot help wondering what would have befallen the cause, had he not been just where he was to forward it in just the way that he did. It is only another among the many instances of the need surely finding the man. His qualifications were unique; his ability, his knowledge, his prestige and authority, his high personal character, his persistence and courage, his combativeness stimulated by an acrimonious temper but checked by a sound judgment, his merciless power of invective, his independence (p. 246) and carelessness of applause or vilification, friends.h.i.+p or enmity, const.i.tuted him an opponent fully equal to the enormous odds which the slave-holding interest arrayed against him. A like moral and mental fitness was to be found in no one else. Numbers could not overawe him, nor loneliness dispirit him. He was probably the most formidable fighter in debate of whom parliamentary records preserve the memory.

The hostility which he encountered beggars description; the English language was deficient in adequate words of virulence and contempt to express the feelings which were entertained towards him. At home he had not the countenance of that cla.s.s in society to which he naturally belonged. A second time he found the chief part of the gentlemen of Boston and its vicinity, the leading lawyers, the rich merchants, the successful manufacturers, not only opposed to him, but entertaining towards him sentiments of personal dislike and even vindictiveness.

This stratum of the community, having a natural distaste for disquieting agitation and influenced by cla.s.s feeling,--the gentlemen of the North sympathizing with the "aristocracy" of the South,--could not make common cause with anti-slavery people. Fortunately, however, Mr. Adams was returned by a country district where the old Puritan instincts (p. 247) were still strong. The intelligence and free spirit of New England were at his back, and were fairly represented by him; in spite of high-bred disfavor they carried him gallantly through the long struggle. The people of the Plymouth district sent him back to the House every two years from the time of his first election to the year of his death, and the disgust of the gentlemen of Boston was after all of trifling consequence to him and of no serious influence upon the course of history. The old New England instinct was in him as it was in the ma.s.s of the people; that instinct made him the real exponent of New England thought, belief, and feeling, and that same instinct made the great body of voters stand by him with unswerving constancy. When his fellow Representatives, almost to a man, deserted him, he was sustained by many a token of sympathy and admiration coming from among the people at large. Time and the history of the United States have been his potent vindicators. The conservative, conscienceless respectability of wealth was, as is usually the case with it in the annals of the Anglo-Saxon race, quite in the wrong and predestined to well-merited defeat. It adds to the honor due to Mr. Adams that his sense of right was true enough, and that his vision was clear enough, to lead him out of that strong thraldom which cla.s.s feelings, (p. 248) traditions, and comrades.h.i.+p are wont to exercise.

But it is time to resume the narrative and to let Mr. Adams's acts--of which after all it is possible to give only the briefest sketch, selecting a few of the more striking incidents--tell the tale of his Congressional life.

On February 14, 1835, Mr. Adams again presented two pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but without giving rise to much excitement. The fusillade was, however, getting too thick and fast to be endured longer with indifference by the impatient Southerners. At the next session of Congress they concluded to try to stop it, and their ingenious scheme was to make Congress shot-proof, so to speak, against such missiles. On January 4, 1836, Mr. Adams presented an abolition pet.i.tion couched in the usual form, and moved that it be laid on the table, as others like it had lately been. But in a moment Mr. Glasc.o.c.k, of Georgia, moved that the pet.i.tion be not received. Debate sprang up on a point of order, and two days later, before the question of reception was determined, a resolution was offered by Mr. Jarvis, of Maine, declaring that the House would not entertain any pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This resolution was supported on the ground that (p. 249) Congress had no const.i.tutional power in the premises. Some days later, January 18, 1836, before any final action had been reached upon this proposition, Mr. Adams presented some more abolition pet.i.tions, one of them signed by "one hundred and forty-eight ladies, citizens of the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts; for, I said, I had not yet brought myself to doubt whether females were citizens." The usual motion not to receive was made, and then a new device was resorted to in the shape of a motion that the motion not to receive be laid on the table.

On February 8, 1836, this novel scheme for shutting off pet.i.tions against slavery immediately upon their presentation was referred to a select committee of which Mr. Pinckney was chairman. On May 18 this committee reported in substance: 1. That Congress had no power to interfere with slavery in any State; 2. That Congress ought not to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia; 3. That whereas the agitation of the subject was disquieting and objectionable, "all pet.i.tions, memorials, resolutions or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had (p. 250) thereon." When it came to taking a vote upon this report a division of the question was called for, and the yeas and nays were ordered. The first resolution was then read, whereupon Mr. Adams at once rose and pledged himself, if the House would allow him five minutes' time, to prove it to be false. But cries of "order" resounded; he was compelled to take his seat and the resolution was adopted by 182 to 9. Upon the second resolution he asked to be excused from voting, and his name was pa.s.sed in the call. The third resolution with its preamble was then read, and Mr. Adams, so soon as his name was called, rose and said: "I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Const.i.tution of the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my const.i.tuents." He was interrupted by shrieks of "order" resounding on every side; but he only spoke the louder and obstinately finished his sentence before resuming his seat. The resolution was of course agreed to, the vote standing 117 to 68. Such was the beginning of the famous "gag" which became and long remained--afterward in a worse shape--a standing rule of the House. Regularly in each new Congress when the adoption of rules came up, Mr. Adams moved to rescind the "gag;" but for many years his motions continued to be voted down, as a (p. 251) matter of course. Its imposition was clearly a mistake on the part of the slave-holding party; free debate would almost surely have hurt them less than this interference with the freedom of pet.i.tion. They had a.s.sumed an untenable position. Henceforth, as the persistent advocate of the right of pet.i.tion, Mr. Adams had a support among the people at large vastly greater than he could have enjoyed as the opponent of slavery. As his adversaries had shaped the issue he was predestined to victory in a free country.

A similar scene was enacted on December 21 and 22, 1837. A "gag" or "speech-smothering" resolution being then again before the House, Mr.

Adams, when his name was called in the taking of the vote, cried out "amidst a perfect war-whoop of 'order:' 'I hold the resolution to be a violation of the Const.i.tution, of the right of pet.i.tion of my const.i.tuents and of the people of the United States, and of my right to freedom of speech as a member of this House.'" Afterward, in reading over the names of members who had voted, the clerk omitted that of Mr. Adams, this utterance of his not having const.i.tuted a vote. Mr. Adams called attention to the omission. The clerk, by direction of the Speaker, thereupon called his name. His only reply was by a motion that his answer as already made should be entered (p. 252) on the Journal. The Speaker said that this motion was not in order.

Mr. Adams, resolute to get upon the record, requested that his motion with the Speaker's decision that it was not in order might be entered on the Journal. The next day, finding that this entry had not been made in proper shape, he brought up the matter again. One of his opponents made a false step, and Mr. Adams "bantered him" upon it until the other was provoked into saying that, "if the question ever came to the issue of war, the Southern people would march into New England and conquer it." Mr. Adams replied that no doubt they would if they could; that he entered his resolution upon the Journal because he was resolved that his opponent's "name should go down to posterity d.a.m.ned to everlasting fame." No one ever gained much in a war of words with this ever-ready and merciless tongue.

Mr. Adams, having soon become known to all the nation as the indomitable presenter of anti-slavery pet.i.tions, quickly found that great numbers of people were ready to keep him busy in this trying task. For a long while it was almost as much as he could accomplish to receive, sort, schedule, and present the infinite number of pet.i.tions and memorials which came to him praying for the abolition of slavery and of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and opposing (p. 253) the annexation of Texas. It was an occupation not altogether devoid even of physical danger, and calling for an amount of moral courage greater than it is now easy to appreciate. It is the incipient stage of such a conflict that tests the mettle of the little band of innovators. When it grows into a great party question much less courage is demanded. The mere presentation of an odious pet.i.tion may seem in itself to be a simple task; but to find himself in a constant state of antagonism to a powerful, active, and vindictive majority in a debating body, const.i.tuted of such material as then made up the House of Representatives, wore hardly even upon the iron temper and inflexible disposition of Mr. Adams. "The most insignificant error of conduct in me at this time," he writes in April, 1837, "would be my irredeemable ruin in this world; and both the ruling political parties are watching with intense anxiety for some overt act by me to set the whole pack of their hireling presses upon me." But amid the host of foes, and aware that he could count upon the aid of scarcely a single hearty and daring friend, he labored only the more earnestly. The severe pressure against him begat only the more severe counter pressure upon his part.

Besides these natural and legitimate difficulties, Mr. Adams was (p. 254) further in the embarra.s.sing position of one who has to fear as much from the imprudence of allies as from open hostility of antagonists, and he was often compelled to guard against a peculiar risk coming from his very coadjutors in the great cause. The extremists who had cast aside all regard for what was practicable, and who utterly scorned to consider the feasibility or the consequences of measures which seemed to them to be correct as abstract propositions of morality, were constantly urging him to action which would only have destroyed him forever in political life, would have stripped him of his influence, exiled him from that position in Congress where he could render the most efficient service that was in him, and left him naked of all usefulness and utterly helpless to continue that essential portion of the labor which could be conducted by no one else. "The abolitionists generally," he said, "are constantly urging me to indiscreet movements, which would ruin me, and weaken and not strengthen their cause." His family, on the other hand, sought to restrain him from all connection with these dangerous partisans.

"Between these adverse impulses," he writes, "my mind is agitated almost to distraction.... I walk on the edge of a precipice almost every step that I take." In the midst of all this anxiety, (p. 255) however, he was fortunately supported by the strong commendation of his const.i.tuents which they once loyally declared by formal and unanimous votes in a convention summoned for the express purpose of manifesting their support. His feelings appear by an entry in his Diary in October, 1837:--

"I have gone [he said] as far upon this article, the abolition of slavery, as the public opinion of the free portion of the Union will bear, and so far that scarcely a slave-holding member of the House dares to vote with me upon any question. I have as yet been thoroughly sustained by my own State, but one step further and I hazard my own standing and influence there, my own final overthrow, and the cause of liberty itself for an indefinite time, certainly for more than my remnant of life. Were there in the House one member capable of taking the lead in this cause of universal emanc.i.p.ation, which is moving onward in the world and in this country, I would withdraw from the contest which will rage with increasing fury as it draws to its crisis, but for the management of which my age, infirmities, and approaching end totally disqualify me. There is no such man in the House."

September 15, 1837, he says: "I have been for some time occupied day and night, when at home, in a.s.sorting and recording the pet.i.tions and remonstrances against the annexation of Texas, and other (p. 256) anti-slavery pet.i.tions, which flow upon me in torrents." The next day he presented the singular pet.i.tion of one Sherlock S. Gregory, who had conceived the eccentric notion of asking Congress to declare him "an alien or stranger in the land so long as slavery exists and the wrongs of the Indians are unrequited and unrepented of." September 28 he presented a batch of his usual pet.i.tions, and also asked leave to offer a resolution calling for a report concerning the coasting trade in slaves. "There was what Napoleon would have called a superb NO!

returned to my request from the servile side of the House." The next day he presented fifty-one more like doc.u.ments, and notes having previously presented one hundred and fifty more.

In December, 1837, still at this same work, he made a hard but fruitless effort to have the Texan remonstrances and pet.i.tions sent to a select committee instead of to that on foreign affairs which was const.i.tuted in the Southern interest. On December 29 he "presented several bundles of abolition and anti-slavery pet.i.tions," and said that, having declared his opinion that the gag-rule was unconst.i.tutional, null, and void, he should "submit to it only as to physical force."

January 3, 1838, he presented "about a hundred pet.i.tions, (p. 257) memorials, and remonstrances,--all laid on the table." January 15 he presented fifty more. January 28 he received thirty-one pet.i.tions, and spent that day and the next in a.s.sorting and filing these and others which he previously had, amounting in all to one hundred and twenty.

February 14, in the same year, was a field-day in the pet.i.tion campaign: he presented then no less than three hundred and fifty pet.i.tions, all but three or four of which bore more or less directly upon the slavery question. Among these pet.i.tions was one

"praying that Congress would take measures to protect citizens from the North going to the South from danger to their lives.

When the motion to lay that on the table was made, I said that, 'In another part of the Capitol it had been threatened that if a Northern abolitionist should go to North Carolina, and utter a principle of the Declaration of Independence'--Here a loud cry of 'order! order!' burst forth, in which the Speaker yelled the loudest. I waited till it subsided, and then resumed, 'that if they could catch him they would hang him!' I said this so as to be distinctly heard throughout the hall, the renewed deafening shout of 'order! order!' notwithstanding. The Speaker then said, 'The gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts will take his seat;' which I did and immediately rose again and presented another pet.i.tion. He did not dare tell me that I could not proceed without (p. 258) permission of the House, and I proceeded. The threat to hang Northern abolitionists was uttered by Preston of the Senate within the last fortnight."

On March 12, of the same year, he presented ninety-six pet.i.tions, nearly all of an anti-slavery character, one of them for "expunging the Declaration of Independence from the Journals."

On December 14, 1838, Mr. Wise, of Virginia, objected to the reception of certain anti-slavery pet.i.tions. The Speaker ruled his objection out of order, and from this ruling Wise appealed. The question on the appeal was taken by yeas and nays. When Mr. Adams's name was called, he relates:--

"I rose and said, 'Mr. Speaker, considering all the resolutions introduced by the gentleman from New Hamps.h.i.+re as'--The Speaker roared out, 'The gentleman from Ma.s.sachusetts must answer Aye or No, and nothing else. Order!' With a reinforced voice--'I refuse to answer, because I consider all the proceedings of the House as unconst.i.tutional'--While in a firm and swelling voice I p.r.o.nounced distinctly these words, the Speaker and about two thirds of the House cried, 'order! order! order!' till it became a perfect yell. I paused a moment for it to cease and then said, 'a direct violation of the Const.i.tution of the United States.' While speaking these words with loud, distinct, and slow (p. 259) articulation, the bawl of 'order! order!' resounded again from two thirds of the House. The Speaker, with agonizing lungs, screamed, 'I call upon the House to support me in the execution of my duty!' I then coolly resumed my seat. Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, advancing into one of the aisles with a sarcastic smile and silvery tone of voice, said, 'What aid from the House would the Speaker desire?' The Speaker snarled back, 'The gentleman from South Carolina is out of order!' and a peal of laughter burst forth from all sides of the House."

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

December 20, 1838, he presented fifty anti-slavery pet.i.tions, among which were three praying for the recognition of the Republic of Hayti.

Pet.i.tions of this latter kind he strenuously insisted should be referred to a select committee, or else to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, accompanied in the latter case with explicit instructions that a report thereon should be brought in. He audaciously stated that he asked for these instructions because so many pet.i.tions of a like tenor had been sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and had found it a limbo from which they never again emerged, and the chairman had said that this would continue to be the case. The chairman, sitting two rows behind Mr. Adams, said, "that insinuation should not be (p. 260) made against a gentleman!" "I shall make," retorted Mr. Adams, "what insinuation I please. This is not an insinuation, but a direct, positive a.s.sertion."

January 7, 1839, he cheerfully records that he presented ninety-five pet.i.tions, bearing "directly or indirectly upon the slavery topics,"

and some of them very exasperating in their language. March 30, 1840, he handed in no less than five hundred and eleven pet.i.tions, many of which were not receivable under the "gag" rule adopted on January 28 of that year, which had actually gone the length of refusing so much as a reception to abolition pet.i.tions. April 13, 1840, he presented a pet.i.tion for the repeal of the laws in the District of Columbia, which authorized the whipping of women. Besides this he had a mult.i.tude of others, and he only got through the presentation of them "just as the morning hour expired." On January 21, 1841, he found much amus.e.m.e.nt in puzzling his Southern adversaries by presenting some pet.i.tions in which, besides the usual anti-slavery prayers, there was a prayer to refuse to admit to the Union any new State whose const.i.tution should tolerate slavery. The Speaker said that only the latter prayer could be _received_ under the "gag" rule. Connor, of North Carolina, (p. 261) moved to lay on the table so much of the pet.i.tion as could be received. Mr. Adams tauntingly suggested that in order to do this it would be necessary to mutilate the doc.u.ment by cutting it into two pieces; whereat there was great wrath and confusion, "the House got into a snarl, the Speaker knew not what to do." The Southerners raved and fumed for a while, and finally resorted to their usual expedient, and dropped altogether a matter which so sorely burned their fingers.

A fact, very striking in view of the subsequent course of events, concerning Mr. Adams's relation with the slavery question, seems. .h.i.therto to have escaped the attention of those who have dealt with his career. It may as well find a place here as elsewhere in a narrative which it is difficult to make strictly chronological.

Apparently he was the first to declare the doctrine, that the abolition of slavery could be lawfully accomplished by the exercise of the war powers of the Government. The earliest expression of this principle is found in a speech made by him in May, 1836, concerning the distribution of rations to fugitives from Indian hostilities in Alabama and Georgia. He then said:--

"From the instant that your slave-holding States become the theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant (p. 262) the war powers of the Const.i.tution extend to interference with the inst.i.tution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to a cession of the State burdened with slavery to a foreign power."

In June, 1841, he made a speech of which no report exists, but the contents of which may be in part learned from the replies and references to it which are on record. Therein he appears to have declared that slavery could be abolished in the exercise of the treaty-making power, having reference doubtless to a treaty concluding a war.

These views were of course mere abstract expressions of opinion as to the const.i.tutionality of measures the real occurrence of which was antic.i.p.ated by n.o.body. But, as the first suggestions of a doctrine in itself most obnoxious to the Southern theory and fundamentally destructive of the great Southern "inst.i.tution" under perfectly possible circ.u.mstances, this enunciation by Mr. Adams gave rise to much indignation. Instead of allowing the imperfectly formulated principle to lose its danger in oblivion, the Southerners a.s.sailed it with vehemence. They taunted Mr. Adams with the opinion, as if merely to say that he held it was to d.a.m.n him to everlasting infamy. The only result was that they induced him to consider the matter more (p. 263) fully, and to express his belief more deliberately. In January, 1842, Mr. Wise attacked him upon this ground, and a month later Marshall followed in the same strain. These a.s.saults were perhaps the direct incentive to what was said soon after by Mr. Adams, on April 14, 1842, in a speech concerning war with England and with Mexico, of which there was then some talk. Giddings, among other resolutions, had introduced one to the effect that the slave States had the exclusive right to be consulted on the subject of slavery. Mr. Adams said that he could not give his a.s.sent to this. One of the laws of war, he said, is

"that when a country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both armies have power to emanc.i.p.ate all the slaves in the invaded territory."