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 LETTERS 
 
 HN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 HIS CONSTITUENTS 
 
 •WELFTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 
 IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 HIS SPEECH IN CONGRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 FEBRUARY 9, 1837. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ISAAC KNAPF, 
 
 No. 25 Cornhill. 
 
 1837. 
 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 The following letters have been published, within a few 
 weeks, in the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot. Notwithstanding the 
 great importance of the subjects which they discuss, the in- 
 tense interest which they are calculated to awaken throughout 
 this commonwealth and the whole country, and the exalted 
 reputation of their author as a profound statesman and power- 
 ful writer, — they are as yet hardly known beyond the limits of 
 the constituency to whom they are particularly addressed. 
 The reason of this is sufficiently obvious. John Quincy Adams 
 belongs to neither of the prominent political parties, fights no 
 partisan battles, and cannot be prevailed upon to sacrifice truth 
 and principle upon the altar of party expediency and interest. 
 Hence neither party is hiterested in defending his course, or in 
 giving him an opportunity to defend himself But, however 
 systematic may be the efforts of mere partisan presses to sup- 
 press, and hold back from the public eye, the powerful and 
 triumphant vindication of the Right of Petition, the graphic 
 delineation of the Slavery spirit in Congress, and the humbling 
 disclosure of northern cowardice and treachery, contained in 
 these letters, they are destined to exert a powerful influence 
 upon the public mind. They will constitute one of the most 
 stiiking pages in the history of our times. They will be read with 
 avidity in the North and in the South, and throughout Europe. 
 Apra't from the interest excited by the subjects under discus- 
 sion, and viewed only as literai-y productions, they may be 
 ranked among the highest intellectual efforts of their author. 
 'Iheir sr»rcasm is Junius-like — cold, keen, unsparing. In 
 boldness, directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear com- 
 parison with O'Connell's celebrated letters to the Reformers 
 of Great Britnin. They are the offspring of an intellect un- 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 shorn of its primal strength, aiid combining the ardor of youth 
 with the experience of age. 
 
 The disclosure made in these letters, of the Slavery influ- 
 ence exerted in Congress over the representatives of the free 
 states, — of the manner in which the rights of freemen have 
 been bartered for southern votes, or basely yielded to the 
 threats of men educated in despotism, and stamped by the 
 free indulgence of unrestrained t3'ranny with the " odious 
 peculiarities " of Slavery, — is painful and humiliating in the 
 extreme. It will be seen, tlsat, in the great struggle for and 
 against the Right of Petition, an account of whicli is given in 
 the following pages, their author stood, in a great measure, 
 alone^ and unsupported by his northern colleagues. On his 
 "gray, discrowne<l head" the entire fury of slaveholding arro- 
 gance and wrath was expended. He stood alone — beating 
 back, with his aged and single arm, the tide which v/ould have 
 borne down and overwhelmed a less sturdy and detcrmir.ed 
 spirit. 
 
 We need not solicit for these letters, and the speech vvhich 
 accompanies them, a thorough perusal. They deserve, and we 
 trust will receive, a cii-culation throughout the entire country. 
 They will meet a cordial welcome from every lover of humao 
 liberty, from every friend of justice and the rights of man,^ 
 irrespective of color or condition. The principles which they 
 defend, the sentiments which they express, are those of Massa- 
 chusetts, as recently asserted, almost unanimously, by her 
 legislature. In both branches of that body, during the dis- 
 cussion of the subject of slavery and the right of petition, the 
 course of the ex-President was warmly and eloquently com- 
 mended. Massachusetts wiii sustain her tried and faithful 
 representative ; and the time is not iar distant, when the best 
 and worthiest citizens of the entire North will proffer him 
 their thanks for his noble defence of f/ieir rights SiS freemen, and 
 of the rights of the slave as a man. 
 
 J. G. W, 
 
 Boston, May 16, 1837. 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 House of Representatives U. S. ) 
 WAsniNGTOx>f, 3d March, 1837. j 
 
 To the Inhabitants of the Ticelfth Congressional District 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — The proceedings of the House of 
 Representatives, on the presentation of abolition and anti- 
 slavery petitions, on the 23d of January, were so incorrect- 
 ly reported in the National Intelligencer of the 25th, that 
 I addressed a letter to the editors of that paper, pointing 
 out some of its errors and omissions, udiich was published 
 in their paper of the 30th. 
 
 On that day, I presented twenty-one petitions, all of 
 which were laid on the table without being read, though, 
 in every instance, I moved for the reading, which the 
 Speaker refused to permit. From his decision I took, in 
 every case, an appeal, and the appeal was in every case 
 laid on the tabic, by a vote of the House, at the motion of 
 a member from New Hampshire, Mr. Cushman. This 
 gentleman, having been reported, in the Globe, as having 
 voted against receiving the abolition petitions, addressed 
 to the editors of that paper a letter correcting that error, 
 and stating that he had voted for receiving them, and then 
 for laying them on the table, where they might be taken 
 up and acted upon whenever the House should think fit. 
 Here, you will observe, was the line of separation between 
 the northern anti-abolitionists and the southern slavehold- 
 ers in the House. The practical result to the petitioner 
 1* 
 
b J. Q. ADAMS S LETTERS. 
 
 was the same. His right of petition was in both cases 
 suppressed. The freedom of speech in the House was 
 equally denied to the members presenting the petition, to 
 support, by argument, its prayer. But the slaveholder 
 denied the right of Congress to receive the petition. His 
 northern auxiliary receives the petition, and lays it on the 
 table, to be taken up when time shall serve, but in the 
 meantime refuses to hear it read. The slaveholder would 
 strip Congress of the pov/er. The northerner holds it in 
 reserve. This distinction may hereafter prove to be a 
 difference. Its present issue is the same. 
 
 I considered, as I stated in my address of the 31st of 
 January, the system of action of the House upon the abo- 
 lition petitions as settled for the remainder of the session. 
 But between that and the next day for receiving petitions, 
 Monday, the 6th of February, I received thirty petitions, 
 among which were two which came to me by the mail, 
 postmarked Fredericksburg, Virginia; one of them signed 
 ]3y nine names of women, in various hand-writing; some 
 of them good, none of illiterate appearance. It prayed 
 not for the abolition of slavery, but that Congress would 
 put a stop to the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 
 It was accompanied by a letter signed by one of the names 
 subscribed to the petition, requesting me to present it. 
 The other purported to be from twenty-two slaves, sub- 
 scribed so as to have every appearance of being genuine ; 
 the first name being in a hand-writing not absolutety bad, 
 and subscribed also alone to a letter requesting me to pre- 
 sent the petition. I believed the petition signed by female 
 nam.es to be genuine, and did not believe them to be names 
 of free negroes or mulattoes ; but had I known them to be 
 such, that would not have deterred me from presenting it ; 
 the object of it being not only proper in itself, but lauda- 
 ble, and eminently fit for subscription by virtuous women 
 of any color or complexion. 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 petitions for their 
 
J. Q. ADAMS S LETTERS. 7 
 
 emancipation, which could have no other tendency than 
 to aggravate their servitude, and of being so impatient 
 under the operation of petitions in their favor, as to pray 
 that the northern members who should persist in present- 
 ing them should be expelled. Intimations of the same de- 
 sire had already been ma^iifested in quarters very remote 
 from servitude, and not even professors of servility. They 
 had been seen in a newspaper of this city, professedly de- 
 voted to the pure coinage of democracy from the mint of 
 Van Buren and Rives, against the counterfeit currency 
 of Benton and Amos Kendall, The Albany Argus itself, 
 a paper known to be under the same influences, had la- 
 mented that the Massachusetts madman should be permit- 
 ted, week after week, — to do what 1 to persist in presenting 
 abolition petitions ! This was the head and front of my 
 offending ; and for this alone, the petition from slaves, for 
 my expulsion from the House, was but the echo of the 
 distinct and explicit call from the Albany Argus and the 
 Van Buren and Rives's Washingtonian. 
 
 But the petition, avowedly coming from slaves, though 
 praying for my expulsion from the House if I should per- 
 severe in presenting abolition petitions, opened to my 
 examination and inquiry a new question ; or at least a 
 question which had never occurred to me before, and 
 which I never should have thought of starting upon spec- 
 ulation, namely : whether the right to petition Congress 
 could in any case be exercised by slaves? And after giv- 
 ing to the subject all the reflection of which I was capa- 
 ble, I came to the conclusion, that however doubtful it 
 might be whether slaves could petition Congress for any 
 thing incompatible with their condition as slaves, and with 
 their subjection to servitude, yet that, for all other wants, 
 distresses, and grievances, incident to their nature as men, 
 and to their relation as members, — degraded members as 
 they may be, — of this community, they do enjoy the right 
 of petition ; and that, if they enjoy the right in any case 
 whatever, there could be none in which they were more 
 certainly entitled to it than that of deprecating the at- 
 tempts of deluded friends to release them from bondage — 
 
8 3. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 a case in which they alone could, in the nature of things, 
 speak for themselves, and their masters could not possibly 
 speak for them. The next question which I considered 
 was, whether this paper was embraced by the resolution 
 of the 18th of January ; and of that, no man, understand- 
 ing the English language, could entertain a moment's 
 doubt. 
 
 But after settling these two questions to the satisfac- 
 tion of my own mind, there remained another, with what 
 temper they would be received in a House, the large ma- 
 jority of which consisted of slaveholders, and of their po- 
 litical northern associates, whose mouth-pieces had already 
 put forth their feelers to familiarize the freemen of the 
 North with the sight of a representative expelled from his 
 seat for the single offence of persisting to present abolition 
 petitions, I foresaw that the very conception of a petition 
 from slaves would dismount all the slaveholding philoso- 
 phy of the House, and expected it would produce an ex- 
 plosion, which would spend itself in wind. Without there- 
 fore presenting, or offering to present, the petition, I stated 
 to the Speaker that I had such a paper in my possession, 
 which I had been requested to present, and inquired 
 whether it came within the resolution of the 18th of Janu- 
 ary. Now, the Speaker had decided that, under that order, 
 no such paper should be read ; yet his first impulse v/as to 
 get possession of that paper ; but I declined presenting it, 
 till it should be decided whether it was embraced by the 
 resolution of the 18th of January, or not. The Speaker, 
 conscious as he was that it came so clearly within the 
 letter of the resolution that it was impossible for him to 
 decide that it did not, yet horrified at the idea of receiv- 
 ing and laying on the table a petition from slaves, said 
 that, in a case so novel and extraordinary, he felt himself 
 incompetent to decide, and must take the advice and di- 
 rection of the House. One of the gross absurdities of the 
 resolution, as administered by the Speaker, was, that 
 every paper relating to slavery, or the abolition of slavery, 
 should, without being read, be laid on the table. I had 
 repeatedly remonstrated both against the resolution and 
 
J. Q. ADAMS's LETTERS. 9 
 
 against his construction of it — in vain ; and one of my 
 purposes in putting this question to him v/as to expose 
 the absurdity in its uncoverable nakedness. The resolu- 
 tion of the 18th of January presupposed by its own terms 
 that every paper, relating to slavery or the abolition of 
 slavery, should be received, without examination or inqui- 
 ry whence it came, or what were its contents. There 
 v\^as neither exception nor qualification in the resolution, 
 and the Speaker had decided that no such paper should 
 be read. If I had stated that I had a petition from sundry 
 persons in Fredericksburg, relating to slavery, v^^ithout 
 saying that the petitioners were, by their own avowal, 
 slaves, the paper must have gone upon the table ; but the 
 discovery would soon have been made that it came from 
 slaves, and then the tempest of indignation would have 
 burst upon me with tenfold fury, and I should have been 
 charged with having fraudulently introduced a petition 
 from slaves, without letting the House knov/ the condition 
 of the petitioners. 
 
 To avoid the responsibility of such a charge, I put the 
 question to the Speaker, giving him notice that the peti- 
 tion purported to come from slaves, and that I had sus- 
 picions that it came from another and a very dilfb-ent 
 source. The Speaker, after failing in the attempt to ob- 
 tain possession of the paper, referred my question to the 
 House for decision ; and then ensued a scene of which I 
 propose to give you an account in a subsequent address, 
 entreating you only to remember, if what I have said, or 
 may say to you hereafter, on this subject, should tax your 
 patience, that the stake in question is your right of pe- 
 tition, your freedom of thought and of action, and the 
 freedom of speech in Congress of your representative. 
 
 JOHN aUINCY ADAMS. 
 
10 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 Washington, 8th March, 1837. 
 
 To the Inhabitants of the Tivdfth Congressional District 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — When, on the 6th of February last, 
 the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United 
 States transferred to the House the responrsibility of 
 answering the question which I had addressed to him, 
 whether a petition, which I held in my hand, purporting 
 to come from slaves, was or was not embraced by the res- 
 olution of the preceding ISth of January, prescribing that 
 all such papers should be laid on the tai3le, without being 
 printed or referred, and without any further action of the 
 House upon them whatever : the most remarkable charac- 
 teristic of the debate which followed, was the struggle of 
 the slave representation to escape from answering the 
 question. They never did answer it. There are in the 
 House one hundred representatives of slaves, about eighty 
 of whom were present. There was not a man among them 
 who did not know, or who dared to deny, that it was in- 
 cluded in that resolution; and the first of them who rose, 
 Tiir. Haynes, of Georgia, after expressing his astonishment 
 and surprise at my audacity, not only then, but on former 
 diiys, in presenting abolition petitions, fairly acknowledged 
 that he did not know how to answer my question, and 
 thought it might be giving too much importance to the 
 petition to object to its being received. He then proceed- 
 ed in a strain of invective upon me, till I called him to 
 order ; upon which he proceeded to announce his inten- 
 tion to move that the petition should be rejected, subject 
 to the alternative of a permission, that it should be Vv^ith- 
 drav/n. But I had not presented the petition. It was not 
 in the possession of the House, and therefore could neither 
 be rejected, nor by the order of the House withdrawn. 
 Besides, the impulse of the slave representation was not to 
 answer the question, but to punish, or at least to frighten 
 the inquirer. Mr. Haynes was immediately admonished 
 
J. Q. Adams's letters. 11 
 
 that no slaveholder must offer such a motion, and imme- 
 diately withdrew that which he had proposed to make. 
 The torrid zone was in commotion. Half-subdued calls 
 of Expel him, expel him, were heard from various parts of 
 the Hall, and the boldest spirits, without yet venturing 
 upon any specific charge, were instigating each other to 
 some deed of noble daring, and of instant execution, to 
 vindicate the insulted honor of the South. At this mo- 
 ment, My. John M. Patton, of Virginia, the representative 
 of the District of which Fredericksburg forms a part, one 
 of the ablest, m.ost independent, and most rational of the 
 slaveholding members, seeing into what absurdities they 
 were about to rush, attempted to divert the torrent of their 
 wrath into another channel. He said he was for going to 
 the fountain-head at once, and asked leave to offer a reso- 
 lution, not concerning the petition from slaves, but that 
 the petition from nine loomen, of Fredericksburg, which 
 had been received and laid on the table, under the order 
 of the 18th of January, should be taken off the table and 
 returned to the member from Massachusetts who had 
 offered it. The rules of the House were forthwith sus- 
 pended, to enable him to offer it; and he did offer it. 
 The reason that he alleged for his resolution was, that the 
 petition came from free negroes, and colored persons of 
 bad character. This was ingeniously devised, but did not 
 suit the fiery temper of the moment. One member was of 
 opinion, that if the gentleman from Massachusetts was to 
 receive any countenance from the House, it was time for 
 the members from the South to go home. Another 
 thought that if any man should disgrace the government 
 under which he lived, by presenting a petition from slaves 
 praying for emancipation, the petition should, by order of 
 the House, be committed to the flames, to which combus- 
 tion another member opined, that the man who should 
 present the petition should also be consigned. The fur- 
 nace was now sufficiently heated, and Mr. Thompson, of 
 South Carolina, a gentleman of great politeness and cour- 
 tesy, offered as an amendment to the proposftion the fol- 
 lowing resolution : 
 
12 
 
 J. Q. ADAMS S LETTERS. 
 
 "Resolved, Tliat the Honorable John Quincy Adams, bj'lhe allempljust 
 made by lihn to introduce a petition, purporting on its face to be from slaves, 
 lias been guilty of a gross disrespect to the House, and that he be insUmtlij 
 brought to the bar, to receive the severe censure of the Speaker." 
 
 This was the first of a series of resolutions, which ab- 
 sorbed three days of the time of the House, but upon 
 which I shall not now waste yours. I invite your atten- 
 tion to it now, only to request you to mark its character- 
 istic tone. Mr. Jefferson has observed that the intercourse 
 between master and slave is a perpetual succession of 
 boisterous and degrading passions ; and it is in the order 
 of nature that the habitual indulgence of this temper of 
 overbearing domination insensibly pervades the general 
 character of the master, and urges him to assume a tone 
 of superiority over his equals, and to hold this lofty bear- 
 ing just so far as he finds it tolerated without rebuke. On 
 the fioor of the House of Representatives, the members, 
 whether representing slaves or mere freemen, are upon a 
 footing of perfect equality with each other. Can you be- 
 lieve that your representative, on that common floor, for 
 asking of the Speaker the simple question, whether a 
 petition from slaves came within the resolution of the 
 House, which it unquestionably did, became, from that in- 
 stant, in the eyes of these master-members, a criminal 
 to be punished, and that the only question between 
 them was, whether he should be instantly dragged to 
 the bar, and severely censured by a master-speaker, or ex- 
 pelled from the House, or burnt with his petition at the 
 stake ? 
 
 The whole transaction, from beginning to end, was in 
 the highest degree disorderly. The resolution offered by 
 Mr. Waddy Thompson was itself wholly out of order as 
 an amendment to Mr. Patton's resolution, which related 
 to a subject altogether different. The Speaker's duty was 
 to reject at once Mr. Thompson's resolution as out of or- 
 der ; but the Speaker was a master, and he received it. 
 Mr. Thompson's resolution was tinkered between him and 
 Mr. Haynes, and Mr. Lewis, of Alabama, till it assumed 
 the following shape : — 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. I'B 
 
 *' Resolved, That John Qiiinc}' Adams, a member from the State of Massa- 
 chusetts, b^"^ his attempts to introduce into this House a petition from slaves, 
 for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, committed an oulrftgo 
 on the rig-hls and feelings of a larg-e portion of the people of this Union; a 
 flag-rant contempt of the dignity of this House : and, by extending to slaves 
 a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly invites the slave population 
 to insurrection ; and that the said member be forlhwitli called to the bar of 
 tlie House, to be censured by the Speaker." 
 
 My constituents ! reflect npon the purport of this reso- 
 lution, which was immediately accepted by Mr. Thomp- 
 son, as a modification of his own, and as unhesitatingly 
 received by the Speaker. He well knew that I had made 
 no attempt to introduce in the House a petition from 
 slaves, and if I had, he knew that I should have done no 
 more than exercise my right as a member of the House, 
 and that the utmost extent of the power of the House 
 would have been to refuse to receive the petition. The 
 Speaker's duty was to reject instantaneously this resolu- 
 tion, and to tell Mr. Lewis and Mr. Thompson, that the 
 first of his obligations was, to protect the rights of speech 
 of members of that House, v/hich I had not in the slight- 
 est degree infringed. But the Speaker was a mastrr. 
 
 Observe, too, that, in this resolution, tlie notable discov- 
 ery was first made, that I had directly invited the slaves to 
 insurrection, of vvhich bright thought Mr. Thompson af- 
 terwards availed himself, to threaten me with the grand 
 jury of the District and the penitentiary, as an incendiary 
 and a felon. I pray you to remember this, not on my ac- 
 count, or from the suspicion that I could, or shall ever, he 
 moved from my purpose by such menaces, but to give yon 
 the measure of slaveholding freedom — of speech, of tlie 
 press, of action, of thought ! If such a question as I asked 
 of the Speaker is a direct invitation of the slaves to insur- 
 rection, forfeiting all my rights as a representative of tlie 
 people, subjecting me to indictment l)y a grand jury, to 
 conviction by a petit jury, and to an infamous penitentiary 
 cell — I ask you not what freedom of speech is left to your 
 representative in Congress, but what freedom of spec:'.!, 
 of the press, and of thought, is left to you? 
 
 A slaveholdin-T President of the United States has ur- 
 
14 J. Q. ADAMS^'s LETTERS. 
 
 gently recommended to Congress the enactment of a law 
 to prohibit, tmdcr severe penalties, " the circulation in the 
 Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publica- 
 tions, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.'^ 
 That law the Congress of the United States have hitherto 
 had too much self-respect to pass. But if it had, this reso- 
 hition, the fruit of the combined wisdom of slave repre- 
 sentation from South Carolina and Alabama, furnishes for 
 your use an ample commentary to expound what fhei/ 
 understand and mean by incendiary publications intended 
 to instigate the slaves to insurrection ; and what they of 
 course would have excluded by severe penalties from cir- 
 culation by the mail. 
 
 Mr. Patton, whose seat v.' as next to mine, and at the 
 same table, had got a hint, perhaps from me, or from hear- 
 ing my ansv/er to some inquirer at my seat, that the peti- 
 tion was 7iot for the abolition of slavery, and he knew that 
 I had not attempted to offer it ; he therefore cautioned the 
 movers of the resolutions, that their proceedings were 
 rather harsh, and somewhat over-hasty in their assumption 
 of facts. This gave me the first opportunity of interposing 
 a word of self-defence — for which I refer you to my next 
 address, 
 
 JOHN aUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Washington, 13th March, 1837. 
 
 To the Inhabitants of the Ticclfth Congressional District 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : — When the cooling potion adminis- 
 tered, by Mr. Patton, to the burning thirst for my punish- 
 ment, of the members from Alabama and South Carolina, 
 began to take effect, I rose and inquired of the Speaker 
 how it happened that a direct resolution calling for in- 
 stantaneous censure upon me, had been substituted for the 
 resolution offered by Mr. Patton, and which he had ob- 
 tained, by a vote of two tliirds of the House, the suspen- 
 
J. Q. ADA'vIs's LETTERS. 15 
 
 ^-'on of the rules to eniil'le him lo offer — which resola- 
 iioii was that the petitioix fiom thj :iine women of Freder- 
 icksbursf, which Iiad !>( a laid on the table under the 
 order of the 18th of Jo ^ary, shoiid be taken and re- 
 turned to me. The Spn ker said that it was by the well- 
 known parliamentary rale that a question of privilege 
 supersedes all other subjects of debate, and takes prece- 
 dence of all others. I told him I was satisfied, for I knew 
 it would be in vain to rcnonstrate. But the Speaker well 
 knew there was no groni. : for a question of privilege, and 
 it was his duty to arrest the resolution of censure at its 
 first presentation. But i.' there had been such ground, the 
 resolution of censure cc ild not be offered as an amend- 
 ment to a resolution which involved no question of privi- 
 lege. Mr. Patton's reso ution respecting the petition of 
 the nine women, was no question of privilege. When Mr. 
 Thompson offered, as an ;--:-nendment to it, the resolution 
 of direct censure upon me, the Speaker's duty was to 
 reject it as not in order, and he would have saved three 
 days of very useless debate. The Speaker, whether from 
 incompetency or unwillingness to discriminate between 
 the questions of privilege and the unprivileged questions 
 in this case, continued to confound them together through- 
 out the whole of these dircussions, and contributed thereby 
 to render the whole deb *te as ridiculous as it was disor- 
 derly. The v/hole proceeding hitherto had been such a 
 scene of blind precipitancy and fury, that I had not had a 
 moment of time to interpose and stay the v/hirlwind. I 
 had compassion upon Messrs. Thompson and Lewis, and 
 told them, that, if they intended to bring me to the bar, to 
 receive the censure of the Speaker, they m.ust amend their 
 resolution, and then intimated to them, that their specifi- 
 cation of my crime rau^it be, that I had in my possession a 
 petition from slaves, praying for that which they them- 
 selves most ardently desired — namely, my expulsion from 
 the House, if I should p':^rsist in presenting abolition peti- 
 tions. The fact was so — but the ludicrous position into 
 which they had floundered was that of calling down cen- 
 sure upon a member of the House for they knew not what 
 
16 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 — for phantoms of their own imagination — for the contents 
 of a petition which they had not suffered to be read, and 
 which no one but myself knew. 
 
 You will readily conceive that this explanation was not 
 altogether satisfactory to those whose passions had so far 
 outstripped their reason. Mr. Mann, a somewhat distin- 
 guished member from the state of New York, supplied 
 them with cold comfort, by a long discourse against abo- 
 lition and fanatics — entreating the gentlemen from the 
 Soidh not to make themselves uneasy about their slaves, 
 nor to take too much to heart my exceedingly improper 
 conduct in presenting, week after week, these abolition 
 petitions ; but to consider that 1 was a venerable, super- 
 annuated person, who in my better days would not have 
 done so ; and that now some mischievous persons had 
 been trifling with me, and I had been trifling with the 
 House. 
 
 But the gentlemen from the South were not to be so 
 appeased. They very justly thought that this was no 
 joking matter. Mr. Thompson, of South Carolina, now 
 thought m^y conduct worse than he had thought before — 
 and instead of one resolution, he was now prepared to 
 ofier three. 
 
 1 . " That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by an effort to present a petition 
 from slaves, has committed a great contempt of this House. 
 
 2. " That the member from Massaciiusetts above named, by creating 
 the impression, and leaving the House under that impression, that the said 
 petition was for the abolition of slavery, when he knew that it Avas not, has 
 trifled with the House. 
 
 3. " That the Hon. John Quincy Adams receive the censure of the House 
 for his conduct refen-ed to in the preceding resolutions." 
 
 Here you see, instead of one crime, I had committed 
 two — first, by an effort to present a petition from slaves, 
 which was a great contempt of the House ; secondly, by 
 creating an impression, and leaving the House under it, 
 that the petition was for the abolition of slavery, when 1 
 knew it was not — this was trifling with the House, and for 
 these crimes I was to be censured. An effort to present a 
 j^etition, a great contempt of the House ! Creating an 
 impression, and leaving the House under that impression, 
 
J. Q. ADAMSES LETTERS. 17 
 
 trifling with the House 1 In the annals of parliamentary 
 deliberation, were such offences ever heard of before? 
 Where, but in an assemblage of slave drivers and slaves, 
 Vv'ould you have believed that such resolutions could be 
 offered, and entertained, and discussed, hour after hour? 
 Yet there they stand, recorded on the Journals of the 
 House of Representatives of the United States. They 
 consumed all the remnant of the day. The gentlemen 
 from the South had all the argument to themselves, and 
 went on creating impressions and leaving the House under 
 them, till,' as evening tv/ilight came on, Mr. Cambreleng 
 told them that he was himself a native of a Southern 
 State, and held the abolitionists in proper abomination ; 
 that he did at first intend to vote v/ith them for censuring 
 me, till he discovered that the petition was not for the 
 abolition of slavery, but the reverse. It v/as evidently a 
 hoax, played upon me hy a southern man ; and there 
 might be members in the House who knew something 
 about it. That I, to be sure, had been very troublesorae 
 by presenting so many abolition petitions; but I had made 
 atonement for that by declaring my opinion against the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and more 
 than five years since he had heard me say that the ren^.edy 
 was worse than the disease. The gentlemen from the 
 South were exasperated by these cool and cutting sarcasms, 
 gravely delivered by the Chairman of the Committee of 
 Ways and Means, till he was called upon for personal 
 explanations. Some of them were for transferring the 
 resolutions of censure for trifling with the House, from me 
 to him ; and some for joining him with me as an accom- 
 plice in the offence. In this temper the House adjourned ; 
 not a word having been said by me, or by any one in my 
 behalf, since the new batch of censorial resolutions had 
 been brought forth. Towards the close of the day, Mr. 
 Haynes, the gentleman who at first did not know whether 
 it would not be giving too much importance to a petition 
 from slaves to object to receiving it, moved as an amend- 
 ment to the three resolutions of Mr. Thompson, tiie fol- 
 lowing : — . 
 
18 J. Q. Adams's letters. 
 
 '' RpsoJrrd, That John Quincy Adams a representative from the state 
 of Massachusetts, has rendered liimself jc 'y Hable to the severest censure 
 of this House, and is censured accordingi;, , for having attempted to present 
 to the House the petition of slaves."' 
 
 And this resolution came on the next morning, immedi- 
 ately after the reading of the Journal, and its correction, 
 which was amended at my motion. 
 
 The question before the House was thus much simpli- 
 fied, and my crime now consisted only in attempting to 
 present to the House a petition from slaves. But Mr. 
 Jenifer, a very spirited slaveholding gentleman from 
 Maryland, who had taken the floor at the close of the 
 session of the day before, now announced that he wanted 
 more specific information, before he should vote upon this 
 resolution, and, in somethiiig of an overseer's tone, called 
 upon me explicitly to declare whether a statement in the 
 Globe of that morning, of what I had said the day before, 
 was or was not correct — or whether I had attempted to 
 present a petition from slaves. I answered his inquiry 
 without delay ; by stating that I had made no such attempt; 
 that the report in the Globe was correct ; that I had 
 merely told the Speaker that I had a paper purporting to 
 be a petition from slaves, which I was requested to pre- 
 sent ; that I had inquired of the Speaker whether it 
 came within the resolution of the 18th of January, to 
 which question I was yet waiting for an answer, and, if 
 that answer should be that it did, I should present the 
 petition. For the gentleman from Marylanil must under- 
 stand, that if slaves were laboring under grievances and 
 afflictions not incident to their condition as slaves, but to 
 their nature as human beings, born to trouble, as the 
 sparks fly upward, and it were within the power and com- 
 petency of the House to afibrd them relief, and they shoidd 
 petition for it — if the House would permit me, I most 
 assuredly would present their petition, and if that avowal 
 deserved the censure of the House, I was ready to receive 
 it — for petition was prayer — it v,;i.s the cry of the suffering 
 for relief; of the oppressed for rnercy. It was what God 
 did not disdain to receive from man, whom he had created ; 
 
J. Q. ADAMSES LETTERS. 19 
 
 and to listen to prayer — to hearlcen to the groan of wretch- 
 edness — was not merely a duty ; it was a privilege ; it was 
 enjoyment ; it was the exercise of a godlike attribute, in- 
 dulged to the kindly sympathies of man. I would there- 
 fore not deny the right of petition to slaves — I would not 
 deny it to a horse or a dog, if they could articulate their 
 sufferings, and I could relieve them. If slaves should pe- 
 tition for any thing improper, unreasonable, or which ought 
 not to be granted, I might pause, or refuse to present their 
 petition ; but if the object prayed for was just and reason- 
 able in itself, and I had the power to grant it, I would — 
 unless forbidden by the House — I would present it ; 
 
 " For earthly power doth then show likest God's, 
 When mercy seasons justice.^' 
 
 From this time, Mr. Jenifer was ready to pass any censure 
 upon me without hesitation. He was sure I was the only 
 man in the House who believed that slaves could, in any 
 case whatever, have the right to petition, and he gave me 
 up as a reprobate spirit, worthy of any punishment that 
 could be inflicted upon me — only regretting that I had not 
 presented the petition, that he might have the opportunity 
 to vote for my expulsion from the House. 
 
 Still, it was obvious, on the state of facts, that I had not 
 aWimpted to present to the House a petition from slaves. 
 The resolution of Mr. Haynes, therefore, could not be 
 made to suit the mastn^ appetite of revenge, till at last 
 Mr. Dromgoole, of Virginia, bethought himself of suggest- 
 ing to Mr. Waddy Thompson, as a substitute for his three 
 resolutions, the following : — 
 
 " Resolved, That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, a member of the House, 
 by stating^ in his place that he had in his possession a paper, purporting- to 
 be a petition from slaves, and inquiring- if" it was within the meaning- of a 
 resolution heretofore adopted, (as preliminary to its presentation,) has ^ven 
 color to the idea that slaves have the right to petition, and of his readiness to 
 be their org-an 3 and that, for the same, he deserves the censure of this 
 House. 
 
 " Resolved, That the aforesaid John Quincy Adams receive a censure 
 from the Speaker, in the presence of the House of Representatives." 
 
 Here I must do Mr. Dromgoole the justice to admit, 
 that the facts were for the first time stated with correctness 
 
20 J. Q. ADAMS's LETTERS. 
 
 and precision. I had given color to the idea, that the right 
 of petition is confined to no color, and of my readiness to 
 be the organ of slaves petitioning for redress of grievances 
 which they only could suffer, and of which no voice but 
 their own could complain. This was my offence, and this 
 I had the more readily avowed, at the requisition of Mr. 
 Jenifer, because, in the peremptory bluster of his manner, 
 I had perceived the disposition to alarm me out of the 
 admission, as, in the taunting confidence of his reply, that 
 I was the only man in the House who entertained that 
 opinion, I saw at once the exultation of his reliance upon 
 numbers to put me down, and the disappointment of his 
 failure in the attempt to intimidate me into a recantation 
 or apology. And so satisfactory to the master-spirit of the 
 South were the resolutions of Mr. Dromgoole, that Mr. 
 Waddy Thompson accepted them as a modification of his 
 own ; and Mr. Haynes, with a viev/ to speedy action, with- 
 drew his proposed amendment, and left them in the pos- 
 session of the field. 
 
 And thus my crime of giving color to an idea, was 
 bandied about among tlie gentlemen from the South, till 
 two of the slave representation themselves, men of intelli- 
 gent minds and of intrepid spirits, fairly revolting at the 
 senseless injustice of all these resolutions of censure upon 
 me, dared to come out and declare their resistance to any 
 resolution of censure upon me, for what I had done. — 
 The first of these was Mr. Robertson, of Virginia, who 
 thought, indeed, my course in persisting to present abolition 
 petitions very offensive; and my avowal that I did believe 
 slaves to possess in any case a right to petition, an aggrava- 
 tion of all my preceding offences — but who could not con- 
 sent to join ill trampling under foot the freedom of speech of 
 the members of the House. Mr. Robertson was also the 
 first who assigned a reason for denying to slaves the right of 
 petition, which was, that Congress, having no right to inter- 
 fere in the law of slavery at all, could not grant the prayer 
 of any petition from slaves. This was begging the ques- 
 tion ; but it was argument, and not frenzy. From this time, 
 all hope of carrying a vote of direct censure upon me was 
 
J. Q. ADAMS'S LETTERS. 
 
 21 
 
 forlorn. Mr. Thompson complained of the instability of 
 his brother slaveholders in the House, but yesterday so 
 fiercely bent upon punishment, that they had spurred him 
 on, and thought his resolutions not severe enough, now 
 dropping off one by one, and flinching even from a vote 
 of disapprobation against me. He, hov>^ever, was not to be 
 found so pliable. He v/ould adhere inflexibly to his reso- 
 lutions, though he should be left to vote for them alone, 
 and would comfort himself with the reflection that the 
 smaller the number who should support him, the greater 
 the honor. 
 
 This was the last flickering of the flame vvhich had burnt 
 so intensely for nearly two days. Mr. Robertson's speech 
 had broken the spell of slaveholding unanimity into which 
 they had been constantly spiriting and lashing one another 
 against me, and against the abolitionists, and against the 
 North. To cover their retreat, Mr. Bynum, of North 
 Carolina, one of the warmest champions of the South, 
 after a long and bitter speech, moved, as a substitute for 
 Mr. Waddy Thompson's third modification of his resolu- 
 tions, the following : — 
 
 *' Resolved, That any attempt to present any petition or memorial, from 
 any slave or slaves, negro or free negroes, from any part of the Union, is a 
 contempt of the House, calculated to embroil it in strife and confusion, 
 incompatible with the dignity of the bodj' ; and any member guilty of the 
 same justly subjects himself to the censure of the House. 
 
 " Resohed, further, That a commiitee be appointed to inquire into the fact 
 whether any such attempt has been made by any member of the House, and 
 report the same as soon as practicable." 
 
 The whole doctrine of contempts, as borrowed from the 
 practice of the British Parliament, is a law of tyranny, in 
 which the House is at once accuser, party, judge, and 
 executioner. Mr. Bynum's resolutions improve upon this 
 system, by adding to these complicated attributes of the 
 House, that of a retrospective legislator. Mr. Bynum 
 dropped all mention of direct censure upon me, but he 
 proposed, ex post facto, to declare to be a contempt of the 
 House, that which no one before had even dreampt to be 
 such. To attempt to present a petition not only from any 
 slave, but from any free negro in any part of the Union, 
 
22 J. Q. ADAMSES LETTERS- 
 
 was, by Mr. Bynum's resolutions, not made a contempt for 
 the future, but declared to be so already ; and his second 
 resolution proposed the appointment of a committee to 
 inquire and report to the House whether such an attempt 
 bad been made by any member of the House, 
 
 Now, the Journals of the House bear record of repeated 
 instances of petitions from free negroes and people of 
 color, received, referred to committees, and reported upon, 
 like others, without question of the right of the petitioners. 
 The Constitution of the United States prohibits Congress 
 from passing any law abridging the right of petition ; and 
 here, Mr. Bynum proposes, without law, by a mere resolu- 
 tion of the House, to abridge the right of petition, by 
 declaring it a contempt of the House to attempt to present 
 one — and then he institutes a court of inquiry, with him- 
 self at its heady and associates appointed by the master- 
 Speaker, to ascertain and report whether such an attempt 
 had been made by any member. 
 
 By the propositions of Mr. Bynum, the House, by reso- 
 lution, would have made a law constituting a crime ex post 
 facto: and then raised a Committee to ascertain and report 
 whether any member had broken the law before it \x?,3 
 made. 
 
 At this new turn of the debate, Mr. Graves, of Kentucky, 
 following the example of Mr. Robertson, declared himself 
 explicitly opposed to any resolution of censure upon me. 
 He went further, and avowed the opinion that Congress 
 \\?ive power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, 
 though well aware that by this avowal he hazarded the 
 displeasure of a great part of the slave representation in 
 the House, and of many of his own constituents. Mr. 
 Graves, like Mr. Robertson, was severe in his animadver- 
 sions upon my course as a presenter of abolition petitions ; 
 and I should have felt with deep mortification the reproof 
 of men so intelligent, fair-minded, and honorable, as I 
 know them to be, had I not acted throughout the whole of 
 these transactions under an impulse of a higher duty than 
 it is in the competency of human approbation to com- 
 mand or to reward. They hazarded much in the land of 
 
J. Q. ADAMSES LETTERS. 23 
 
 slavery, even in showing by their deeds and words that 
 they know what freedom is. I honor tliem for their 
 spirit ; I thank them for their defence of the freedom of 
 sperch in the House of which they were members — a 
 defence the more creditable to them, inasmuch as it v/as 
 the defence of their adversary against their allies; and I 
 rcfrret that, refusing to join in a vote of formal censure upon 
 me by the House, they should have thought it necessary to 
 express their individual censure upon my exercise of a 
 right which they could not deny, and would not refuse. 
 
 Immediately preceding the offer of Mr. Bynum's reso- 
 lutions, Governor Lincoln spoke the first word in my 
 defence which had been uttered in the House. His speech 
 has been well reported, published in several nevvspapers, 
 and in a' pamphlet, and has, I presume, been generally 
 read by you. On the manner in which he spoke of me, 
 it would not become me to remark. Of that in which he 
 vindicated your character and honor, his hearers will long 
 retain the memory ; nor will it ever be forgotten by me. 
 
 Mr. Phillips represented to the Speaker that Mr. 
 Bynum's resolutions, not being within the question of 
 privilege, could not be moved as an amendment to the 
 resolutions of censure; but the Speaker decided that they 
 were in order, and Mr. Phillips had no alternative but to 
 submit. 
 
 Mr. Patton tried his hand again. He moved as an 
 amendment to Mr. Bynum's amendment of Mr. Waddy 
 Thompson's third set of censorial resolutions, all moved 
 as amendments to Mr. Patton's resolution that the petition 
 from nine women of Fredericksburg should be taken up 
 from the table and returned to me, and all decided by the 
 Speaker to be perfectly in order. Mr. Patton now moved 
 the following : — 
 
 " Resolved, That the right of petition does not belong- to the slaves of tliis 
 Union, and that no petition from them can be presentee! to this House, with- 
 out derog-atin? from the rights of the slavcholding states, and endangering 
 the integrity of the Union. 
 
 " Resolved, That any member who shall hereafter present any such 
 petition to the House, ought to be considered as regardless of tiie feelings 
 of the House, the rights of the South, and an enemy to the Union. 
 
24 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Hon. John Quiucy Aciams having solemnly disclaimed 
 all design of doing- any thing disrespectful to the House, in the inquiry he 
 made of the Sjieaker, as to the petition purporting to be from slaves, and 
 having; avowed his intention not to offer to present the petition, if the House 
 was oV opinion that it ought not io be presented : therefore all further pro- 
 ceedings in regard to his conduct now cease." 
 
 These resolutions of Mr. Patton were one step further 
 backward behind those of Mr. Bynum. The first of them 
 declares that the right of petition does not belong to the 
 slaves of this Union, and thus far it approached my ques- 
 tion to the Speaker, but did not answer it ; and to the 
 negation of the right of the slave, it added a new oifence 
 to the criminal code, wh^ch, taken in connection with the 
 second resolution, amounted to nothing less than construc- 
 tive treason. 
 
 The second resolution endeavors, indeed, to elude the 
 prohibition, by the constitution, of the enactment of ex post 
 facto laws, by confining to future time the declaratory law 
 of treason. Nor does it provide a punishment for this 
 atrocious crime. It only says that any member who shall 
 hereafter present any such petition to the House ovgld to 
 he considered as regardless of the feelings of the House, 
 the rights of the South, and an fucmy to the UniGii. 
 
 Now, the Constitution of the United States declares that 
 treason against the United States shall consist only in levy- 
 ing war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giv- 
 ing them aid and comfort : but here is a resolution declar- 
 ing that a member of the House ought to be considered as 
 an enemy io the Union — for presenting a petition. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States gives to each 
 House of Congress the power to determine the rules of its 
 proceedings, to punish its members for disorderly behavior, 
 and, with the concurrence of two thirds, to expel a mem- 
 ber. The power of punishment by the House is limited 
 to the offence of disorderly behavior. If this resolution 
 had been adopted, and any member should hereafter have 
 presented a petition from slaves, what could they have 
 done with him? There is not a word or syllable in the 
 Constitution or laws of the United States, which prohibits 
 slaves from petitioning, or a member of either House of 
 
J. Q. -ADAMS S LETTERS. '^J 
 
 Congress from presenting their petitions. There is an ex- 
 press provision of the Constitution that Congress shall pass 
 no law abridging the right of petition ; and here is a reso- 
 iution, declaring that a member ought to be considered as 
 regardless of the feelings of the House, the rights of the 
 South, and an enemy to the Union, fur presenting a peti- 
 tion. 
 
 Pcegardless of the feelings of the House ! What have 
 the feelings of the House to do with the free agency of a 
 member in the discharge of his duty] One of the most 
 s?xred duties of a member is to present tlie petitions com- 
 mitted to his charge — a duty which he cannot refuse or 
 neglect to perform, without violating his oath to support 
 the Constitution of the United States, He is not, indeed, 
 bound to present all petitions. If the language of the 
 petition be disrespectful to the House, or to any of its 
 members — if the prayer of the petition be unjust, immoral, 
 or unlav/ful — if it be accompanied by any manifestation of 
 intended violence or disorder on the part of the petitioners, 
 the duty of the member to present it ceases ; not from 
 respect for the feelings of the House, but because these 
 things themselves strike at the freedom of speech and ac- 
 tion, as well of the House as of its members. Neither of 
 these can be in the slightest degree affected by the mere 
 circumstance of the condition of the petitioner, nor is 
 tliere a shadow of reason why the feelings of the House 
 should be outraged, by the presentation of a petition from 
 slaves, any more than by petitions from soldiers in the army, 
 from seamen in the navy, or from the working-women 
 of a manufactory. 
 
 Regardless of the rights of the South 1 What are the 
 rights of the South'? What is the South ? As a compo- 
 nent portion of this Union, the population of the South 
 consists of masters, of slaves, and of free persons, white 
 and colored, without slaves. Of which of these classes 
 would the rights be disregarded by the presentation of a 
 petition from slaves? Surely not those of the slaves 
 themselves; the suffering, the laborious, the producing 
 class. Oh, no ! there would be no disregard of their rights 
 
26 J. Q, 'Adams's letters. 
 
 in the presentation of a petition from them. The very 
 essence of the crime consists in an alleged undue reo-ard 
 for their rights; in not denying them the rights of human 
 nature ; in not classing them with horses, and dogs, and 
 cats. Neither could the rights of the free people, without 
 slaves, whether white, black, or colored, be disregarded by 
 the presentation of a petition from slaves. Their rights 
 could not be aiTected by it at all. The rights of the South, 
 then, here mean the rights of the masters of slaves, which, to 
 describe them by an inoffensive word, I will call the rights 
 of masteri/. These, by the Constitution of the United States, 
 are recognized, not directly, but by implication; and pro- 
 tection is stipulated for them, by that instrument, to a cer- 
 tain extent. But they are rights incompatible with the in- 
 alienable rights of all mankind, as set forth in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; incompatible with the fundamental 
 principles of the constitutions of all the free states of the 
 Union, and therefore, when provided for in the Constitution 
 of the United States, are indicated by expressions which 
 must receive the narrowest and most restricted construc- 
 tion, and never be enlarged by implication. There is, I 
 repeat, not one word, not one syllable in the Constitution 
 of the United States, which interdicts to Congress the re- 
 ception of petitions from slaves ; and as there is express 
 interdiction to Congress to abridge, by law, the right of 
 petition, that right, upon every principle of fair construc- 
 tion, is as much the right of the South as of the North, 
 as much the right of the slave as of the master; and the 
 presentation of a petition from slaves, for a legitimate ob- 
 ject, respectful in its language, and in its tone and char- 
 acter submissive to the decision w'hich the House may 
 pass upon it, far from disregarding the rights of the South, 
 is a mark of signal homage to those rights. 
 
 An enemy to the Union ! for presenting a petition ! an 
 enemy to the Union ! I have shown that the presentation 
 of petitions is among the most imperious duties of a mem- 
 ber of Congress. I trust I have shown that the ri^rht to 
 petition, guarantied to the people of the United States, 
 without exception of slaves, express or implied, cannot be 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 27 
 
 ahriflged by any act of both Houses, with the approbation 
 of the President of the United States ; but this resolution, 
 by the act of one branch of the legislature, would effect 
 an enormous abridgment of the right of petition, not only 
 by denying it to one full sixth part of the whole people, 
 but by declaring an enemy to the Union any member of 
 the House who should present such a petition. 
 
 The third resolution, as if repenting of the concession 
 that the presentation of petitions from slaves was not yet 
 the heinous crime, which, according to the second, it was 
 to be considered hereafter, graciously tendered to me a 
 cessation of prosecution, for what was no offence, in con- 
 sideration of my disclaimer of any intention to trifie with 
 the House, and my promise not to present the petition if 
 the House should refuse to receive it. 
 
 Yet these were the resolutions of a gentleman, who, 
 u])on every question disconnected with the color of the 
 skin, is just, and fair, and intelligent, and inflexibly devot- 
 ed to the principles of freedom. 
 
 These resolutions did not answer my question, but the 
 first of them distinctly affirmed that the right of petition 
 does not belong to the slaves of this Union. Mr. Patton 
 assigned no reason for this averment, nor is there any thing 
 in the Constitution or laws to sustain it. In the debate 
 which ensued, and which consumed the remainder of the 
 day, Mr. Gushing, in a very eloquent speech, proved it to 
 be utterly untenable, and that the right of petition was a 
 primitive, inalienable right, recognized by the Constitution 
 of the United States as preexisting to itself, and guarded 
 from abridgment, in express terms, by one of its articles. 
 
 At this stage of the proceedings of the House, the day 
 for opening and counting the votes, and declaring the re- 
 sult of the presidential election for the term of four years, 
 then about to commence, intervened. The question for 
 that dav was suspended, and resumed on Thursday, the 
 9th of February, by an elaborate speech from Mr. French, 
 of Kentucky. This gentleman is a judge, and made the 
 only argument against the right of slaves to petition, which 
 was delivered in the whole of this three days' debate. 
 
28 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 And what think you was the main stay of his argument 
 It was, that if slavery should be abolished in the slave- 
 holding states, they would lose a part of their representa- 
 tion in Congress. 
 
 Mr. Milligan, the member from Delaware, moved to 
 lay the whole subject on the table, but, upon my earnest 
 remonstrance against this course, withdrew tlie motion. 
 
 Mr. Evans, of Maine, took the floor, and after review- 
 ing and covering with ridicule the whole series of resolu- 
 tions of censure upon me, was proceeding to a full defence 
 and vindication of the abolition petitions, and of the char- 
 acter of the petitioners, when he v/as arrested by calls 
 to order. The slave representation in the House could 
 not endure, and would not tolerate, the discussion of the 
 question whether slavery is a blessing to be perpetuated, 
 or an evil to be removed. Mr. Evans was not permitted 
 to proceed but upon restrictions and conditions to which 
 he would not submit, and he yielded the floor to the 7iias- 
 tcry impartiality of the Speaker. 
 
 Mr. Patton presented a new modification of his resolu- 
 tions, omitting the first, and reducing the second to the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " Resolved, That any member who shall hereafter present to the House any 
 petition from the slaves of this Union, ought to be considered as regardless 
 of ihe (celings of the House, the right of the Southern States, and unfriendly 
 to tlie Union." 
 
 The third resolution was left as it had been oflered on 
 Tuesday. 
 
 This was the ultimatum, after three days of debate, 
 nine tenths of which, at least, were occupied by the slave 
 representation in adjusting the form in which they were 
 to settle the principles of this controversy ; this was the 
 ultimatum of the law which they were now to dictate, and 
 of the new offence by which they were to circumscribe 
 the freedom of speech of the members of the House from 
 the free portion of this Union, with reference to petitions 
 from slaves. 
 
 The averment that the right of petition does not belong 
 to the slaves of this Union was withdrawn, and the reso- 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. ~ 29^ 
 
 lution, denouncing as a crime the presentation hereafter 
 of any petition from the shives of this Union was so far 
 mitigated as to make it not quite treason. The member 
 who shouhi dare to present such a petition, was still to 
 be considered as regardless of the feelings of the House — 
 not indeed of the rights of the South, but of the right of 
 the Southern States — and although not absolutely an ene- 
 my, yet luifricndly to the Union. 
 
 This, I say, was the ultimatum of the slave representa- 
 tion. Mr. Waddy Tliompson accepted ?>Ir. Patton's two 
 resolutions, now presented, as a modification of all his 
 preceding modifications. Mr. Bynum w^ithdrew his pro- 
 posed amendment, and Mr. Vanderpool, of New York, 
 called for the previous question. 
 
 I had not yet been heard in my own defence. I claimed 
 that privilege, and entreated Mr. Vanderpool to withdraw 
 his motion, which he declined. The House, however, by 
 a vote of 100 to 79, refused to second him^ and I had per- 
 mission to speak. 
 
 The substance of what I said has been published in the 
 National Intelligencer, and more fully in the Boston Daily 
 Advocate. It has also been republished in one of the 
 nev/spapers within your district. 
 
 The previous question was then renewed, and after 
 some explanations from Mr. Thompson, of South Caro- 
 lina, separate questions were taken, by yeas and nays, 
 upon each of Mr. Patton's resolutions ; the first of 
 which was rejected by a vote of 105 to 92 ; the second 
 by a vote of 137 to 21 ; thirty-nine members, who had 
 voted upon the first resolution, not voting at all upon the 
 second. 
 
 The first was the only question of any importance v»ith 
 regard to the settlement of principles. Had it passed, it 
 would have put an end to all freedom of speech and action 
 in the House, for its object was not to declare that slaves 
 have not the right of petition, but to make it an offence 
 against the House, the Southern States, and the Union, 
 io present n petition. The resolution applied, not to the 
 3* 
 
30 J. Q. ADAMS's LETTERS. 
 
 right of the slave to petition, but to the right of tlie mem- 
 ber to present the petition of slaves. 
 
 The vote upon this resolution drew the line of demarca- 
 tion between the free and the slave representation more 
 closely than perhaps any other vote ever taken in the 
 House. Of the ninety-two members, who voted for the 
 resolution, thirteen only were from the non-slaveholding 
 states ; and in the following proportions — six from New 
 York, two from I^Iaine, one from New Hampshire, one 
 from Connecticut", two from Ohio, and one from Indiana, 
 all politically devoted to the President elect. Of the slave- 
 holding states, four members only voted against the reso- 
 lution — the member from Delaware, almost a free state, 
 two from Kentucky, and one from Missouri. 
 
 Fellow citizens: — Had the transactions of which I have 
 given you this tedious detail, been merely conflicts of per- 
 sonal concernment to me — had they been merely desperate 
 assaults upon my good name and character, for the pur- 
 pose of destroying or undermining your confidence in me 
 as your representative — I should have felt myself justified 
 in asking your patient indulgence to the narrative, in justi- 
 fication of myself and of my conduct in your service. But 
 higher motives have impelled me to this appeal to yourselves. 
 
 Since the existence of the Constitution of the United 
 States, there has never before been an example of an at- 
 tempt in the House of Representatives to punish one of 
 its members for words spoken by him in the performance 
 of his duty. The utmost constitutional power of the 
 House would be to regard such words as disorderly, and 
 to reprove the speaker of them by declaring them such. 
 It is expressly provided by the Constitution, that for any 
 speech or debate in either House of Congress, no senator 
 or representative shall be questioned in any other place; 
 but in this case, your representative was seriously, de- 
 liberately, and persistingly threatened with a prosecution, 
 by a slaveholding grand jury, and a sentence to the peni- 
 tentiary as an incendiary, for asking a question of the 
 Speaker of the House. I will not recur to the history of 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 31 
 
 the country from which we derive our descent, and es- 
 pecially our principles of freedom of speech and action in 
 legislative assemblies, for examples, in which motions for 
 total revolutions in the government, for subversion of the 
 established religion, for setting aside and altering the suc- 
 cession to the crown, have been invariably held to be* 
 within the general freedom of speech and action to which 
 every member of parliament is entitled. If J had offered 
 in the House a resolution proposing an amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States, emancipating all the 
 slaves in the Union, and declaring slavery, within its bor- 
 ders, forever abolished, I should have done nothing beyond 
 the exercise of my rights ; but let it once be settled and 
 admitted that the House can, by resolution, put a member 
 to the bar for offering to present a petition from slaves, 
 and what is there to prevent the extension of the same 
 interdict to any other subject than slavery ? Mr. Bynum's 
 resolutions actually proposed to extend it to petitions from 
 free negroes. Had Mr. Patton's resolutions been adopted 
 — had the House once assumed a censorial power over its 
 members for acts performed in the discharge of their duty 
 — I have no doubts that at the very next session of Con- 
 gress, the same prescriptive censure would have been ap- 
 plied to all petitions for the abolition of slavery in the 
 District of Columbia, and from thence to every other pe- 
 tition, the prayer of which would be displeasing to a party 
 majority in the House, till the right of petition itself, the 
 rod of Aaron in the Ark of your Constitution, would 
 wither into a mere instrument of oppression and revenge, 
 wielded by the hand of faction. 
 
 The decision of the House upon the two resolutions last 
 offered by Mr. Patton, proved that a majority of the House 
 were not yet prepared to assume this censorial power over 
 its members ; but the proceedings of the House on the 
 subject of this petition, and all petitions relating to slave- 
 ry, did not terminate here. I must ask your further atten- 
 tion and patience for the conclusion of my story, v.diich 
 may conduct you to the close of the session, and possibly 
 
3^ 
 
 J. Q. ADAMS S LETTERS, 
 
 to the inaugural address of the new President of the 
 United States. 
 
 JOHN aUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Washington, 20th March, 1837, 
 
 To tlie Inhahitants of the Tioelfth Congressional District 
 of Blassachusetts. 
 
 Fellow Citizens : — In my preceding addressee, I have 
 spread before you the fifteen successive resokitions, the 
 result of the whole combined slave statesmanship of the 
 House of Representatives of the United States, all having 
 one and the same purpose of passing a vote of censure 
 upon me, for asking, in the discharge of my duty as a 
 member, a question of the Speaker. 
 
 The two resolutions upon which they had finally forced 
 a vote of the House, by yeas and nays, were rejected, but 
 my question was not answered, and they were aware that 
 it could not be answered, negatively. It had not been, 
 whether the House would receive a petition from slaves, but 
 whether a petition from slaves came within the resolution 
 of the 18th of January, When the resolution declaring 
 that 1 had trifled with the House was under consideration, 
 one of the most prominent allegations laid to my charge 
 was, that, by asking the question, I had intended indirectly 
 to cast ridicule upon that resolution, and upon the House 
 for adopting it. Nor was this entirely without foundation. 
 I did not intend to cast ridicule upon the House, but to 
 expose the absurdity of that resolution, against which I 
 had protested as unconstitutional and unjust. But the 
 characteristic peculiarity of this charge against me was, 
 that while some of the gentlemen of the South were urg- 
 ing the House to pass a vote of censure upon me, for a 
 distant and conjectural inference of my intention to deride 
 that resolution, orhers of them, in the same debate, and 
 on the same day, were showering upon the same resolution 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 33 
 
 direct expressions of iiiiqiialified contempt, without even 
 being called to order. Like the saints in Hudibras — 
 
 '' The saints may do the same thing- by 
 The Spirit in sincerity, 
 Which other men are prompted to, 
 And at tlie devil's instance do 3 
 And yet the actions be contrary, 
 Just as the saints and wicked vary." 
 
 So it was with the gentlemen of the South. While Mr. 
 Pickens could openly call the resolution of the 18th of 
 January a miserable and contemptible resolution; wliile 
 Mr. Thompson could say it was fit only to be burnt by the 
 hands of the hangman, without rebuke or reproof, — I was 
 to be censured by the House for casting ridicule upon 
 them, by asking the question whether the resolution in- 
 cluded petitions from slaves. 
 
 They were dissatisfied with the result of their crusade 
 against me, in the vindictive pursuit of v^diich they had not 
 only forgotten to answer my question, but even to obtain 
 from the House a declaration denying the right of slaves 
 to petition. On Friday morning, several of th.em. vvere 
 absent from their seats in the House, and mysterious 
 givings out were circulated that a caucus meeting of the 
 South had been held, in which grave proposals had been 
 made that they should secede in a body and go home. 
 This was an old expedient tried before, some years since, 
 and not without some effect upon the simple good nature 
 of the North. Whether it was really brought i^orv/ard at 
 this time, I cannot absolutely say ; but the rumors were, 
 that a first and second meeting v/ere held, at which the 
 opinions expressed were found so discordant, that it was 
 finally concluded to be the wisest course to return to their 
 seats in the House, and negotiate with the free representa- 
 tion for a reconsideration of one of the rejected resolutions. 
 The interposition of the President elect of the United 
 States was also said to have been solicited and obtained ; 
 and there is authority from his southern adherents for the 
 assurance that it was exercised in a manner altogether 
 satisfactory to them. The sympathies of the whig mem- 
 bers from the free states were likewise invoked, by their 
 
34 J. Q. Adams's letters. 
 
 opposition associates of the nullification creed, and the 
 Pennsylvania delegation, who, to a man, had been found 
 inaccessible to the censorial resolutions, were now many 
 of them coaxed into a compromise with the dark spirit of 
 slavery, so indignantly and justly characterized by the 
 governor of that commonwealth. 
 
 The gentlemen from the South had rung all the changes 
 of their censorial resolutions exclusively among themselves. 
 The peace-offering to their wounded sensibilities was to 
 come entirely from representatives of freemen. The mo- 
 tion for reconsideration of the first rejected resolution of 
 Mr. Patton, was made on Friday evening by Mr. Lane, of 
 Indiana, and carried the next morning by the immediate 
 application of the previous question. Even before this 
 vote of reconsideration, Mr. Taylor, of New York, and 
 Mr. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, had asked leave of the 
 House to offer resolutions propitiatory to the anxieties and 
 resentments of the gentlemen of the South. The resolu- 
 tion presented by Mr. Taylor deserves special attention, as 
 it may be considered as indicative of the opinions and 
 councils of the present President of the United States ; 
 that of Mr. Ingersoll as expressive of the anti-abolition 
 sentiments prevailing at this time in the city of Philadel- 
 phia, and less intensely throughout the northern part of 
 the Union. The first of these resolutions was offered by 
 Mr, Taylor, and the second by Mr. Ingersoll, probably in 
 concert with Mr. Thompson, of South Carolina, the mover 
 of the first resolution of censure upon me, and who finally 
 accepted Mr. InjcrLoITs resolution as a substitute for his 
 own. 
 
 Both the resolutions underv/ent sundry modifications 
 before they were adopted by the House. That of Mr. 
 Ingersoll was, in its last mutation, reduced to this 
 shape : — 
 
 " An inquiry having" been made by an honorable gentleman from Massa- 
 chusettS;, whether a paper which he held in his hand, purporting to be a pe- 
 tition from certain slaves, and declaring themselves to be slaves, came within 
 the order of the House of the 18th of Januar}', and the said paper not 
 having been received by the Speaker, he stated that, in a case so extra- 
 ordinary and novel; he would take the advice and counsel of the House. 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 35 
 
 " Resolved, That this House cannot receive said petition without disrej^ard- 
 ing its own dignity; the rights of a large class of the citizens of the South 
 and Vv^est, and tli'e Constitution of the United States." 
 
 You will remark, that while the preamble recites my in- 
 quiry of the Speaker, as the reasons for the resolutions, 
 yet the resolution itself evades answering my inquiry. My 
 question was, whether the petition came within the order 
 of the 18th of January. The answer is, that the House 
 c:innot i-eceive said petition, &c. It is no answer at all. 
 The Speaker had already decided that two petitions pre- 
 sented by me, and not received, were included within the 
 order of the 18th of January; and therefore the fact that 
 the petition from slaves had not been received, afforded no 
 reason for excluding it from the operation of the order of 
 the IStli of January. I moved as an amendment to P*Ir. 
 Ingersoll's resolution, that the order of the 18th of Janu- 
 ary should be inserted in it word for word, followed by a 
 declaration that the petition from slaves was not within 
 the order of the House, and I asked him to accept this as 
 a modification of his resolution, which he declined. He 
 said he would give his reasons for declining, if I desired ; 
 but he gave none. His resolution was carried by the pre- 
 vious question; but if you v/ill read his resolution, as it 
 would have read with the insertion of the order, you will 
 not need to inquire what his reason was. 
 
 The resolution contains the averment of three distinct 
 propositions, declaring that the House could not receive 
 the petition, without disregarding, 
 
 1. Its own dignity. 
 
 2. The rights of a large class of the citizens of the 
 South and West, and, 
 
 3. The Constitution of the United States. 
 
 How the House could disregard its dignity by receiving 
 a petition, is beyond m.y comprehension. The only rea- 
 son assigned for it, is the condition of the petitioners, be- 
 cause they are slaves. The sentiment, in the bosom of 
 any free American, that one sixth part of his countrymen 
 are, by the accident of their birth, deprived even of the 
 natural right of prayer, is degrading enough to human na- 
 
36 J. Q. ADARIS'S LETTERS. 
 
 ture ; but that because, in one portion of this Union, the 
 native American becomes, by descent from African ances- 
 try, an outcast of human nature, classed with tho brute 
 creation, within the boundaries of the state in which he 
 was born, therefore, it is beneath the dignity of the Gen- 
 eral Legislative Assembly of a nation, founding its exist- 
 ence upon the natural and inalienable rights of man, to 
 listen to his prayer, or even to receive his petition, is an 
 opinion to which I trust your judgments Vv'ill never assent, 
 and a sentiment which your hearts will reject with disgust. 
 
 " The rights of a large class of the citizens of the 
 South and AYest," for the prayer of the petition, w'as not 
 for, but against the abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia. It was the voice of slaves hugging their 
 chains, and praying that they might not be broken. It 
 was impossible that any action of the House upon that 
 petition, wdiether of compliance or of refusal, could in 
 any manner impair any riglUs of any citizen of the South 
 or of the West. 
 
 Nor was Mr. Ingersoll more fortunate in his third aver- 
 ment, that the House could not receive the petition with- 
 out disregarding the Constitution of the United States. 
 The truth is directly the reverse. It was his resolution 
 that disregarded and trampled under foot the Constitution 
 of the United States, which expressly forbids Congress 
 from abridging, even by law, the right of petition, and 
 which, not by the remotest implication, limits that right to 
 freemen. This, fellow-citizens, is a point upon which 
 every one of you can judge for himself. Let him who is 
 not fiimiliarly acquainted w^ith that instrument, read it — 
 let him read and search it, for the article, section, or para- 
 graph, from which so much as a plausible inference can be 
 drawn, forbidding either House of Congress from receiving 
 a petition from slaves. He will find abundant evidence 
 that the authors of the Constitution considered slavery as 
 one of those vessels of dishonor, which, albeit impairing 
 the purity of our political institutions, could not even be 
 ncaned with decency in a compact formed for securing to 
 the people of the Union the blessing of liberty. He will 
 
J. Q. ADAMS's LETTERS. 37 
 
 find that, in every instance where slaves are alluded to, it 
 is always s.s 2)ersons, and not as property; that the words 
 slave or slcwcry are not found in the whole document; 
 that they are recognized as members of the community, 
 possessing rights even in the provisions depriving them of 
 their exercise- and enjoyment ; that their right to be rep- 
 resented in Congress is admitted, even in the provision 
 which curtails it by two fifths, and transfers the remainder 
 to their masters ; that their right to the protection of the 
 laws, and to the enjoyment of freedom in the free states, 
 is admitted even in the provisions that when escaping from 
 the states where they are held to service or labor, they 
 shall be delivered up to their masters. But you will not 
 fmd one word which expressly, no, not one word which, 
 by rational construction, liberal or strict, deprives them 
 of the right of petition. 
 
 This resolution, therefore, far better suited to the me- 
 ridian of Charleston than to that of Pliiladelphia, is a 
 worthy companion of the three reported by Mr. H. L. 
 Pinckney, at the first session of the last Congress, and the 
 second of wdiich was repeated by the order of the 18th of 
 January last. Of that order, many of you have manifested 
 3'our high disapprobation, by petitioning the House to re- 
 scind it But the resolution of Mr. Ingersoll bows the 
 knee yet nearer to prostration before the spirit of slavery. 
 It surrenders the post at which the tottering freedom of 
 the North and Centre had erected a breastwork of defence 
 to the right of petition. The gentlemen of the South had 
 been desperately struggling through two sessions of Con- 
 gress, for a positive refusal of the House to receive any 
 petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
 lumbia, or in any manner relating to slavery. This refu- 
 sal to receive, they had not been able to carry, till a repre- 
 sentative from the city of William Penn, came forward as 
 their volunteer auxiliary. His resolution has set the ex- 
 ample of refusing to receive petitions, on no better ground 
 than the condition of the petitioners. At the next step in 
 the progress of servility, the same argument will be applied 
 with more plausibility to the object of the petition, and the 
 4 
 
38 J. Q. ADAIvIs's LETTERS. 
 
 House will be called to resolve a formal exclusion and re- 
 fusal to receive any petition relating to slavery or the abo- 
 lition of slavery — and with the right of petition on this 
 subject, the freedom of speech in the House will be in like 
 manner abridged. That the freedom of the press in this 
 city will share the same fate, you have premonitory symp- 
 toms in the pledge already extorted from the National In- 
 telligencer, immediately after the publication of Mr. Slade's 
 letter, containing the argument which he intended to ad- 
 dress to the House on the right of slaves to petition, but 
 which was cut off by the previous question. 
 
 If this refusal to receive petitions, and to hear delibera- 
 tive argument upon any question relating to slavery, could 
 be confined to that subject alone, I might have spared my- 
 self the reluctant labor, and you the weary perusal of these 
 addresses — but if coming events cast their shadows before 
 them, we shall soon be hurried into the midst of a revolu- 
 tion more formidable than any collision between the co- 
 ordinate departments of the government for patronage, any 
 transitory tampering with the currency, any scramble be- 
 tween rival usurers and stock-jobbers for deposits of the 
 public money, any swindling Indian treaties, or more 
 swindling Indian wars, or any deep dissension between the 
 cotton-gin of the planter and the spinning-jenny of the fac- 
 tory. All these may be compromised — all these may be 
 occasionally used as ladders to power, and ascended or 
 overleaped, according to the shrewdness or the impetuos- 
 ity of the aspirants, to reach the summit of ambition. On 
 all these lines of separation and opposition between the 
 different portions of the Union, the counteracting im- 
 pulses of popular leaders may balance each other, and the 
 result is nothing worse than fluctuations of public policy, 
 and perhaps shortened presidential terms. But the con- 
 flict of interests, and of principles involved in the jarring 
 elements of freedom and slavery implanted in the physical, 
 moral, intellectual nature of our institutions, must sooner 
 or later come to an issue, and must control the destinies 
 not merely of this nation, but of this hemisphere, and of 
 man upon this planet. The abolition of slavery in the 
 
J. Q. ADAMsj's LETTERS. 39 
 
 District of Columbia is but a drop of water to the ocean 
 — but a mite in the mountain laboring with the freedom 
 of man. The convulsive spasm produced in the House of 
 Representatives of the United States, by the mere question 
 wliether they would in any case receive a petition from 
 slaves, was not occasioned by any galvanism in the ques- 
 tion itself — it was the flash of light over the closed eyes 
 of the slaveholder, exhibiting to him his slave petitioning 
 for his freedom. It is said that in the turbulent diets 
 of Poland, before her subjugation, every member of the 
 body possessed the veto povvcr over every act of their 
 legislation. The assemblies were held in open air. The 
 nobles attended them, mounted on coursers fleet as the 
 winds. The right to pronounce the veto was strictly con- 
 stitutional ; but woe to him who pronounced; for from the 
 moment that it issued from his lips, his only safety was in 
 flight. His life was on the speed of his horse. If he did 
 not start as he spoke, his noble associates of the diet rush- 
 ed upon him instantly, and cut him to pieces. If he fled, 
 they galloppsd in pursuit, and whoever overtook him, by a 
 stroke of his partisan, severed his head from his body as 
 he flew. This was the remedy for the exercise of a con- 
 stitutional right in the- republican monarchy of Poland. 
 The tiger turn of the gentlemen from the South, upon the 
 member who asked the obnoxious question, was indicative 
 of the same spirit habitually prevalent among the nobles of 
 the Polish diet. Mr. Ingersoll's resolutions partook of the 
 same infusion — no longer vindictive, but still minatory. 
 
 Mr. Taylor's resolution was in far more measured, and 
 less questionable terms. It was in these words: — 
 
 " Resolved. That slaves do not possess the right of petition, secured to 
 iho citizens of the United States by the Constitution." 
 
 This resolution was probably prepared by, or after con- 
 sultation, with the President elect of the United States. It 
 was amply suflicient, so long as a majority of the House 
 of Representatives shall concur in that opinion, to exclude 
 the reception of any petition from slaves ; but it was not 
 s itisfactory to the gentlemen from the South. Their pur- 
 pose y/as to stigmatize the presentation, or, by one of 
 
40 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 Speaker Polk's distinctions, the offer to present such pe- 
 tition. The resolution of Mr. Ingersoll gave color to 
 their idea, and furnished them with a precedent for the 
 future refusal of any petition relating to the abolition of 
 slavery. 
 
 Both the resolutions are mere opinions of a majority of 
 the House, reversible- at any day when the majority of the 
 House shall entertain a contrary opinion. It is not com- 
 petent for the House of Representatives to adjudicate 
 what are or are not the rights secured to the citizens of 
 the United States by the Constitution; but if Mr. Taylor's 
 resolution is true, a citizen of the United States, enslaved 
 at Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli, would possess no right to 
 petition Congress for his redemption, or for any measures 
 to effect it. 
 
 The question whether slaves possess the right of petition, 
 is of no practical importance, except as the denial of the 
 right is an abridgment of the right itself. Their masters 
 will take care to keep the redressing of all their grievances 
 in their own hands, and will redress them in their own 
 way. But the resolution that the House cannot receive a 
 petition from them, is an abridsrment not only of their 
 right of petition, but of the constitutional power of the 
 House ; and the precedent of that abridgment of power in 
 one case yields a principle that may be applied in num- 
 berless others, till the whole right of petition shall, like the 
 attainment of office, be numbered among the spoils of 
 victory — the exclusive possession of the dominant party of 
 the day. 
 
 Both the resolutions were adopted by yeas and nays — 
 that of Mr. Insrersoll, by a vote of 160 to 35 ; that of Mr. 
 Taylor, by 162 to 18. 
 
 The vote of the House, on both the resolutions, indi- 
 cates, with much precision, the temper of the House upon 
 the subject of the abolition of slavery. I believe further^ 
 that the comparative numbers on both sides fairly repre- 
 sented the numbers, as well as the opinions of the con- 
 stituent body, the people of the United States. I have no 
 reason to think there was one member of the House who 
 
J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 41 
 
 would have voted for the immediate abolition of slavery in 
 the District of Colmiibia. The majority were very averse 
 to receiving any petitions for that object ; nor was there 
 opportunity afforded me of presenting any more, of the 
 multitudes which I received and was requested to present. 
 On Monday, the 13th of February, the order of receivino- 
 petitions was reversed ; commencing with the territories, 
 and proceeding from South to North ; and upon the state 
 of Massachusetts being called, the House adjourned at the 
 motion of Mr. Cave Johnson, a Van Buren member, from 
 Tennessee. On the 20th and 27th of February, days 
 when, by the rules of the House, petitions should have been 
 received, the rules were suspended to give preference to 
 other business. In the mean time, an average of eight or 
 ten petitions every day, were coming to me, with requests 
 that I would present them. On the last day of the session, 
 I had two hundred of them in ray hands, from the states 
 of ]\Iassachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New 
 York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina. 
 It had been customary to allow members having petitions, 
 which they had not had the opportunity to present, to 
 leave them, at the close of the session, with the clerk, and 
 they were entered upon the journals. This the Speaker 
 now declined to allow, without a special order of the 
 House. Mr. Lawrence, v/ho had also a number of peti- 
 tions to present, moved for such an order ; but objection 
 was made to the reception of his resolution, and the pres- 
 entation of several hundreds of petitions was suppressed ; 
 and, among the rest, several relating to subjects in no wise 
 connected with slavery or its abolition. Sons of the 
 Plymouth Pilgrims ! I have given you a statement, faithful 
 and accurate, of the condition of your right of petition, in 
 the House of Representatives of the United States, at the 
 close of the twenty-fourth Congress. In the Senate, the 
 same right was equally prostrated, though with less re- 
 sistance, and by the means of other forms. 
 
 Since then, the inauguration of Mr. Van Buren has 
 placed a new chief m;rristrate at the head of this Union. 
 To those of you who have petitioned for the abolition of 
 4 * 
 
4'2 J. Q. ADAMs's LETTERS. 
 
 slavery in the District of Columbia, it cannot be indifferent 
 to learn that the only specific point of policy upon which 
 he has thought proper to pledge the conduct of his admin- 
 istration in advance, is the denial of that very measure. 
 He declares that, even if a bill for abolishing slavery in the 
 District of Columbia should obtain the sanction -of a ma- 
 jority in both Houses of Congress, he would oppose to its 
 enactment his constitutional negative. If this declaration 
 means no more than it im.ports, there is little prospect that 
 its sincerity or the firmness of his adhesion to its princi- 
 ple will ever be put to the test. There is not the remotest 
 prospect, that, within the term of his administration, a ma- 
 jority of either, much less of both Houses of Congress, will 
 be found prepared to vote for that measure ; and if so great 
 a change in the public mind should be effected, as would 
 produce majorities of both Houses in favor of abolition, it 
 vv'ill not be within the efficacy of his veto to resist the 
 course of the torrent. But if, as there is reason to appre 
 hend, this premise is intended as a pledge, that the whole 
 influence, official and personal, of the President of the 
 United States shall be applied to sustain and perpetuate 
 the institution of domestic slavery, it is a melancholy prog- 
 nostic of a new system of administration, of which the 
 dearest interests of New England will be the first victims, 
 and of which the ultimate result can be no other than the 
 dissolution of the Union. 
 
 Slavery has already had too deep and too baleful an in- 
 fluence upon the affairs and upon the history of this Union. 
 It can never operate but as a slow poison to the morals of 
 any community infected with it. Ours is infected with it 
 to the vitals. We are told that the national government 
 has no right to interfere with the institution of domestic 
 slavery in the states, in any manner. What right, then, 
 has domestic slavery to interfere in any manner with the 
 national government? What right has slavery to interfere 
 in the free states with the dearest institutions of their free- 
 dom ? with the right of habeas corpus ? with the right 
 of trial by jury ? with the freedom of the press? with 
 the freedom of speech? with the sacred privacy of co'* 
 
J. Q. ADA.MS'S LETTEHS. 43 
 
 respondence by the mail ? Yf hat right has slavery to in- 
 terfere with the laws of other nations productive of free- 
 dom ? What right to interfere with the lav/s of Bermu- 
 da ? of the Bahama Islands? of Great Britain? What 
 right has she to cast her living chattels upon a soil which 
 has banished her forever, and then come whining to the 
 national government that the touch of the soil of liberty 
 has quickened her chattels into freemen ; and requiring 
 of the national government to claim indemnity for her 
 emancipated chattels. Nay, more and vv^orse — what right 
 has slavery to chide the national government for not de- 
 manding her indemnity in a tone sufficiently peremptory? 
 for not threatening Great Britain with war, if she lingers 
 longer to pay the price of sinews bought and sold? 
 
 If the national government has no right to interfere with 
 the institution of domestic slavery in the states, in any 
 manner, Vvdiat right has domestic slavery to issue from her 
 consecrated boundaries, and call on the national govern- 
 ment for protection, for defence, for vindication of her 
 pretended and polluted rights? What right has she to 
 show her face upon the ocean, where the laws of the na- 
 tion have pronounced her detested traffic piracy ? The 
 independence of sovereign states, from all foreign interfer- 
 ence with their municipal institutions, is reciprocal, or it 
 is nothing. If you have no right to interfere with the 
 slavery of South Carolina, the slavery of South Carolina 
 has no right to interfere with your freedom. 
 
 If the national government has no right to interfere with 
 the institution of domestic slavery in any of the states, 
 what right has that same government to hang on your 
 neck the millstone of Texian slavery? — reinstituted slave- 
 ry, in a land where once that curse of God had been ex- 
 tinguished ? — slavery restored by fraud and treachery, 
 and the imposture of a painted harlot, usurping the name 
 of freedom ? Is the annexation of Texas, with her exe- 
 crable load o^ eternal slavery, to the Union — is that one 
 of the engagements implied in Pvlr. Van Buren's pledge 
 never to sign a bill for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia ? If tlie pledo-e of the inau rural address 
 
44 J. Q. AI>AxMs's LETTERS. 
 
 means any thing more than soothing sound, it means that 
 the maintenance and perpetuation of slavery in this Union, 
 shall be the cardinal point, the polar star, of Mr. Van 
 Buren's administration. And with that pledge, can you 
 doubt that the manacles of Texian slavery will be fastened 
 upon your hands, and the fetters of Texian slavery upon 
 your feet? — Children of Carver, and Bradford, and Wins* 
 low, and Alden ! the pen drops from my hand ! 
 
 JOHN aUINCY ADAMS, 
 
SPEECH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 IN THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 February 9, 1837, 
 
 Oil the Resolutions to censure him for inquiring of the Speaker, 
 whether a paper purporting to he from Slaves, came ivithin the 
 order of the House, ivhidi laid on the table all petitions relating 
 to Slavery. 
 
 [Reported by the Editor of the Boston Daily Advocate.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker : — I shall endeavor to occupy as little of 
 the time of this House as possible, in what I am about to 
 say ; and shall forbear to introduce into my remarks a 
 great deal I had intended to say, should I be permitted to 
 speak in my defence. I wish to bring back the House to 
 the only question really before it; and that is, the question 
 I propounded to the Speaker, and which he put to the 
 House last Monday, whether a paper, which I held in my 
 hand, purporting to come from slaves, was within the 
 resolution of this House, laying on the table all petitions, 
 resolutions and papers relating to the subject of slavery. 
 On that inquiry, no question has been taken by the House. 
 I am anxious that question should be taken by yeas and 
 nays, whether this House, under any circumstances, will 
 receive a petition from slaves. 
 
 When I made that inquiry, a member from Georgia (Mr. 
 Haynes) said he could not tell in what manner to meet a 
 proposition of this kind. It might be giving it more im- 
 portance than it deserved, to notice it at all. Well, sir, if 
 it was deserving of no attention, why did not the House 
 
46 SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 vote directly on the proposition of the Speaker, yea or nay, 
 whether that paper came within the resolution of the 
 House ? Instead of that, the House has been occupied 
 four days, by the attempts of gentlemen to censure me for 
 doing what I did not attempt to do. — Now, sir, I did not 
 present that paper to the House. I knew it was a question 
 that demanded deliberation. I knew it would receive 
 deep attention from this House, from this nation, and from 
 the civilized world. I was prepared to submit to any 
 decision the House might take upon it, but I was desirous 
 that the House should take a direct vote upon it, and that 
 the vote should remain a record for all time. But I was 
 aware that it opened the whole question of the condition 
 of slavery in this country, and the whole extent of the 
 rights and privileges of members of this House, in the 
 exercise of the liberty of speech. That freedom of speech 
 is, I trust, to one portion of the House, still dear. Of 
 another portion, I cannot say, from what I have seen and 
 heard within these four days, that I entertain that hope. I 
 say I was av^^are that the answer to ray question opened the 
 whole subject of the condition of slaves, and the right of 
 speech of members of this House. Well, sir, has this 
 question been considered? Of all the gentlemen who, for 
 three days, have consumed the time of this House upon 
 the succession of resolutions of censure upon me for 
 asking that question, one gentleman only, (Mr. French, of 
 Kentucky,) v.dio has fdied a judicial station, gave us what 
 he thought a sound constitutional argument, to show that 
 this House oiiffht not to receive petitions from slaves under 
 any circumst; :;;:; s. The argument of that gentleman 
 was able ; but if the rejection of the petition depends on 
 that argument, those Vv'^ho vote with him must recur to 
 other arguments to sustain their course. What was his 
 argument? It v/as, that, if you abolish slavery in the 
 states of this Union, by taking away a portion of tlie 
 representation in slave states, you violate the Constitution. 
 Now, I ask for the chain or connection between the prem- 
 ises and the conclusion. Is that the gentleman's logic, 
 that, if you abolish slavery, you take away a portion of the 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 47 
 
 right of representation, secured by the Constitution, and 
 therefore the slave has no right to petition? 
 
 \Mx. French rose and explained, not materially varyincr 
 the proposition.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. Has the gentleman connected his prem- 
 ises and conclusion any better than before? Suppose, for 
 a moment, that slavery were abolished; how would it fol- 
 low that the slave states would lose any portion of their 
 representation? Would not the consequence be directly 
 the reverse, and increase, instead of diminishing, their 
 representation ? If slavery were abolished in the states, 
 those who are now represented as slaves, would form apart 
 of the v/hole number of free persons, and Vv^ould be repre- 
 sented as such. But suppose, for argument sake, that the 
 abolition of slavery should reduce the proportional repre- 
 sent2ition of the slave states. What has my question to 
 do with the abolition of slavery in the states ? My ques- 
 tion was, whether a petition from slaves came v/ithin th.e 
 order of the 18th of January, that all memorials, resolu- 
 tions, petitions, and papers, relating, in any manner, to 
 slavery or the slave trade, should, without being printed 
 or referred, be laid on the table, and no further action of 
 the House should be had thereon. The order made no 
 discrimination of persons, from whom the petitions or 
 papers should come. It included all petitions— «// paperj. 
 The paper that I held was a petition — it was a paper. It 
 came rigidly within the letter of the order — and what was 
 there to exclude it from its spirit? It was to be laid on 
 the table without reading, without printing, without being 
 referred, without further action upon it by the House. 
 Why should it not come under that order ? It came from 
 slaves? There was nothing in that order excluding peti- 
 tions from slaves. There is not a word in the Constitution 
 of the United States excluding petitions from slaves. 
 Suppose the abolition of slavery should reduce the repre- 
 sentation of the slave states; does that prove that, without 
 the abolition of slavery, the slave shall not be permitted to 
 cry for mercy? to plead for pardon? to utter the shriek of 
 perishing nature for relief? The gentleman argued upon 
 
48 SPEECH OI^ J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 a question entirely different from tliat put by the Speaker 
 to the House, and which I yet hope the House will answer, 
 whether, under any circumstances, they will receive a 
 petition from slaves ? 
 
 I beg leave to explain my views of the argument, on the 
 right of petition. One of my colleagues (Mr. Gushing) 
 has justly said, that the right of petition is not a right 
 derived from the Constitution, but a preexisting right of 
 man, secured by a direct prohibition in the Constitution to 
 Congress to pass any law to im.pair or abridge it. Sir, the 
 framers of the Constitution would have repudiated the idea 
 that they were giving to the people the right of petition. 
 No, sir. That right God gave to the whole human race, 
 when he made them men^ — the right of prayer, by asking 
 a favor of another. My doctrine is, that this right belongs 
 to humanity, — that the right of petition is the right of 
 prayer, not depending on the condition of the petitioner ; 
 and I say, if you attempt to fix any limit to it, you lay the 
 foundation for restriction to any extent that the madness 
 of party spirit may carry it. This is my belief, and if the 
 House decide that the paper I have described comes within 
 the resolution, I will present it, and, in so doing, shall 
 feel that I am performing a solemn duty. 
 
 What, sir ! place the right of petition on the character 
 and condition of the petitioner, or base it upon a mere 
 political privilege ! Such a decision would present this 
 country to all the civilized world as more despotic than 
 the worst of barbarian nations. The sultan of Turkey 
 cannot walk the streets of Constantinople and refuse to 
 receive a petition from the vilest slave, who stands to meet 
 him as he passes by. The right of petition contests no 
 power ; it admits the power. It is supplication ; it is 
 prayer; it is the cry of distress, asking for relief; and, 
 sir, sad will be the day when it is entered on the Journals 
 of this House, that we will, under no circumstances, 
 receive the petition of slaves. When you begin to limit the 
 right, where shall it stop? The gentleman on my left (Mr. 
 Patton, of Virginia) objected to another petition, which I 
 did present, from women of Fredericksburg, because it 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 49 
 
 came from free colored people. That was giving color to an 
 idea with a vengeance !* But the gentleman went farther, 
 and made the objection that I had presented a petition 
 from women of infamous character — prostitutes, I think 
 he called them. 
 
 [Mr. Fulton rose to explain. It was not so. When 
 the gentleman presented that petition, which I knew came 
 from mulattoes in a slave state, I meant to confine my 
 objection to petitions of mulattoes or free negroes in the 
 Southern States. I meant to rescue the ladies of Fred- 
 ericksburg from the stigma of having signed such a pe- 
 tition. Sir, no lady in Fredericksburg would sign such a 
 petition.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. With respect to the question what female 
 is entitled to the character of a lady, and what not, I 
 should be sorry to enter into a discussion here. I have 
 never made it a condition of my presenting a petition 
 here, from females, that they should all be ladies, though, 
 sir, I have presented petitions for the abolition of slavery 
 in this District, from ladies as eminently entitled to be 
 called such, as the highest aristocrats in the land. When 
 I have presented these petitions, I have usually said they 
 were from women, and that, to my heart, is a dearer appel- 
 lation than ladies. 
 
 But, sir, I recur to my first position — ^that when you 
 establish the doctrine that a slave shall not petition be- 
 cause he is a slave, that he shall not be permitted to raise 
 the cry for mercy, you let in a principle subversive of eve- 
 ry foundation of liberty, and you cannot tell where it will 
 stop. The next step will be that the character, and not 
 the claims, of petitioners will be the matter to be discussed 
 on this floor ; and whenever, as in the case of the gentle- 
 man from Virginia, (Mr. Patton,) any member finds a name 
 on a petition which belongs to a person whom he says he 
 knows to be of bad character, a motion will be made not to 
 receive the petition, or to return it to the member who 
 offered it. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Patton) 
 
 * One of the resolutions proposed to censure Mr. Adams for having at- 
 tempted io give color to the idea that slaves had a right to petition ! 
 
 5 
 
50 SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 says he knows these women, and that they are infamous. 
 IIoiD does the gentleman know it? [A laugh.] 
 
 [Mr. Patton. I did not say that I knew the women, 
 personally. I knew from others that the character of one 
 of them was notoriously bad.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. I am glad the gentleman now says he 
 does not know these women, for if he had not disclaimed 
 that knowledge, I might have asked lolto it was that made 
 these women infamous,— whether it was those of their own 
 color or their masters. I have understood that there are 
 those among the colored population of slaveholding states, 
 who bear the image of their masters. [Great sensation.] 
 
 Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, here went across the hall to 
 the seat of Mr. Adams, and, amidst cries of *' Order," held 
 up to him the petition of the women of Fredericksburg, 
 and said, " Is not that your hand-writing, endorsed ' From 
 ladies of Fredericksburg' ? " 
 
 Mr. Adams. Mr. Speaker, I did not designate them as 
 ladies when I presented the petition. That is my hand- 
 writing ; but when I endorsed it, and sent it to the table, I 
 did not know or suspect that the petitioners were colored 
 people. 
 
 Here, then, is another limitation to the right of petition. 
 First, it is denied to slaves, then to free persons of color, 
 and then to persons of notoriously bad character. Now, 
 sir, if you begin by limiting this right as to slaves, you 
 next limit it as to all persons of color, and then you go 
 into inquiries as to the character of petitioners before you 
 will receive petitions. There is but one step more, and 
 that is to inquire into the political faith of petitioners. 
 Each side will represent their opponents as being infamous; 
 and what becomes of the right of petition? Where and 
 how will the right of petition exist at all, if you put it on 
 these grounds ? 
 
 A gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Robertson,) to whose 
 candor and generosity on this occasion T offer my tribute 
 of thanks, as it contrasts with the treatment I experience 
 from others, — though disapproving, in the strongest terms, 
 the pertinacity of zeal which I have so often manifested 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 51 
 
 in behalf of this right of petition, — is unwilling to pass a 
 vote of formal censure upon me, because he sees how 
 manifestly incompatible that would be with any freedom 
 of speech in this House. He says — and he is a distin- 
 guished lawyer — that there can be no right to petition, 
 where there is no power to grant the prayer. This is 
 ingenious and plausible; but that gentleman, even whose 
 disapprobation is more painful to me than would be the 
 formal censure of others, might excuse me, if I cannot 
 assent to the correctness of his argument. The want of 
 power to grant the prayer of a petition is a very sufficient 
 reason for rejecting that prayer, but it cannot impair the 
 right of the petitioner to pray. 
 
 The question of power applies to the authority to grant 
 the petition, but not to the right of the petitioner to pre- 
 sent his petition. The power to grant it is often one of 
 the most mooted questions in the world. In relation to 
 this very matter of slavery, the power to grant the prayer 
 of those who ask for its abolition in the District of Co- 
 lumbia, is the question that divides this House. Ask the 
 gentlemen from slaveholding states, in this House, wheth- 
 er Congress has that power. Not one of them will say 
 they have. 
 
 [Mr. Graves, of Kentucky, who was sitting near Mr. 
 Adams, and who had declared, in this debate, that he 
 held Congress had that power, reminde.d him of the fact.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. Yes, one gentleman from Kentucky has 
 affirmed that Congress has the power to abolish slavery in 
 this District, but very few from slaveholding states v/ill 
 say so ; and I do not know what it may cost that gentle- 
 man for having uttered such an opinion on this floor. 
 Ask two of the representatives from Maine, ask the 
 members from Vermont, from Massachusetts, from Rhode 
 Island, from Connecticut, from— ^no, I will not go to New 
 Hampshire nor New York, untd I see how they vote on 
 the question before the House. Ask the representatives 
 of none but freemen on this floor, and their answer will 
 be that Congress has the power. 
 
 The ground of the gentleman from Virginia, who de- 
 nies tlie right of petition without the power to grant, is 
 
52 SPEECH or J. Q, ADAMS. 
 
 perfectly consistent with his doctrine that Congress has 
 no power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; 
 but, sir, that is not the opinion of this House, and this 
 House is anti-abolition, by an overwhelming majority. I 
 am so myself; but, upon the single question of the power 
 of Congress to abolish slavery within the District, there 
 is a great majority of this House in favor of the power. 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Robertson) believes 
 that Congress has no such power, and here he denies the 
 right of petition for the exercise of a power which Con- 
 gress does not possess. Well, sir, for the sake of the 
 argument, I might grant him his premises, and then deny 
 his conclusion. It would reduce the right of petition to 
 nothing more than the right of the predominant party, for 
 the time being, to petition. It would exclude all petitions 
 from those who held with a minority in Congress, as to 
 the right to exercise any given power ; and the right of 
 petition would be hedged in, until it would be reduced to 
 a mere nullity as to its essential characteristic — a supplica- 
 tion from one man in distress to another, who, he believes, 
 has the power to relieve him. I wish it was in my power 
 to illustrate this principle further, without taking up more 
 of the time of the House than I intend to do; but I for- 
 bear. This, sir, is the ground of my doctrine — that the 
 right of petition cannot be limited, by any act of this 
 House, so as to deny the right to supplicate to the slave. 
 
 In the course of the argument on the right of petition, 
 I should say debate, sir, during three days, the real ques- 
 tion before the House has been changed to an almost 
 countless series of resolutions, bearing down upon me, all 
 intended, directly or indirectly, to censure me for asking 
 a question of the Speaker, which he referred to the House, 
 and which the House has not yet answered. I will not go 
 through a detail of all these resolutions, with which gen- 
 tlemen from the South pounced down upon me like so 
 many eagles upon a dove. I make no account of the 
 cries heard all around, when I asked that question, " Expel 
 him, expel him!" They are not in the resolutions. The 
 first resolution to censure me came from the gentleman 
 from Georgia, (Mr. Haynes.) That was not strong enough, 
 
SPEECH OP J. Q. ADAMS. 53 
 
 and was followed by one more bitter, from the gentleman 
 from South Carolina, (Mr. Waddy Thompson.) Even 
 tliat was thought too mild for my offence, and was fol- 
 lowed by Timodijication from the gentleman from Alabama, 
 (Mr. Lewis,) which the gentleman from South Carolina 
 accepted. I will not enumerate the rest, as they were 
 showered upon me in quick succession, all reminding me 
 of the exclamation of Dame duickly, 
 
 '^ O ! day and nig-ht, but these are bitter words ! " 
 
 But, in the midst of the exultation of the gentlemen, — for 
 they seemed sure of two thirds of the House to carry any 
 thing they chose to propose, — I was under the necessity of 
 rising, as soon as I could get the floor, and asking the 
 gentlemen, before they brought me as a culprit to the bar 
 to be censured, to amend their resolution, and make it 
 conform to the facts, about which they had not thought it 
 worth while, in their very great zeal to put me down, to 
 inquire at all. Well, instead of admitting their error into 
 which they had run, without a word from me to justify it, 
 the gentlemen took advantage of my explanation of the 
 nature of the paper purporting to come from slaves, and 
 pounced upon me with another resolution, charging me 
 with the high crime and misdemeanor of their own false 
 construction of the contents of the paper, which they as- 
 sumed to be a petition from slaves for abolition, and that 
 I had permitted the House to believe it was true ! So I 
 was to be gravely censured for gentlemen believing what 
 they had no right to believe, nor even to infer, and what 
 I had never said one word to justify them in believing ! 
 But it was soon found that this would not do, and another 
 proposition came from the gentleman from Georgia, which 
 answered the purpose no better, and which he was obliged 
 to withdraw. There came another resolution, from the 
 honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Dromgoole,) 
 charging a new crime of most alarming import, and that 
 was, that I had ^^ given color to an ideaV^ [Laugh.] I 
 will not say a word upon that charge in the indictment 
 against me. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Evans) 
 has so keenly exposed it to the ridicule it deserves, that 
 
54 SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 those who introduced it cannot desire to hear any thing 
 more said upon that suhject. 
 
 Sir, there was, for once in this House, a remarkable 
 unanimity between gentlemen found in opposition to each 
 other on all other questions. A gentleman, whose speeches 
 on this floor have not caused him to be regarded as the 
 most devoted friend of this administration, (Mr. Waddy 
 Thompson, of South Carolina,) proposed his resolution of 
 censure. A devoted friend of the administration (Mr. 
 Dromgoole, of Virginia) proposed an amendment which 
 the gentleman from South Carolina accepted at once, and 
 that was to censure me for giving color to an idea ! Sir, it 
 was in vain that I rose, and gave the gentlemen the sober 
 advice to attend a little more to their facts. The moment I 
 attempted to explain, and set aside all their assumed facts, 
 wliisk ! there came another resolution of censure, charging 
 me with trifling with the House. It was not what I did, 
 but what I did not do. 
 
 I did not get up soon enough, it seems, to show these 
 gentlemen the best way to censure me, and enable them to 
 correct their resolutions, which they had brouglit forward 
 Vv'ith sucli zeal and in such rapid succession, but in which, 
 unfortunately for them, there was not one word of truth. 
 
 When I say there was not one word of truth in the res- 
 olutions of the gentlemen from South Carolina and Ala- 
 bama, I do not call in question their veracity. There are no 
 men in whose veracity I would sooner trust my whole 
 life; but I tell them that, when they undertake to charge 
 a member of this House, who never gave them the slight- 
 est cause of oifence, with crimes that should draw down 
 upon him the censure of this body, without first ascertain- 
 ing the facts, they have stepped beyond the bounds of dis- 
 cretion and propriety ; and I will give them one word of 
 advice, — that, when they draw up resolutions to censure me, 
 they should first be careful to pay a little attention to facts. 
 
 [This allusion brought Mr. Lewis and Mr. Thompson 
 both on their feet. j\lr. Lewis, of Alabama,, said that he 
 came into the House in the midst of the excitement, and, 
 on inquiry, was told that the gentleman from Massachu- 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 55 
 
 setts, Mr. Adams, lip.d attempted to present a petition from 
 slaves. He took it for granted it was a petition for abo- 
 lition, and it was full two hours before he understood that 
 it was of a different character. Had he known the object 
 of the petition, he should not have offered the resolution.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. Sir, I very readily admit the explanation 
 of the gentleman. He took for granted what happened 
 not to be true. But I do not intend the slightest disre- 
 spect to the gentlemen. I only take the occasion to give 
 them a little advice, the advice of an old man to ardent 
 young men, to govern their future conduct in this House, 
 when they undertake to censure their colleagues. But I 
 want another explanation from the gentleman from South 
 Carolina, (Mr. Waddy Thompson,) and I want to know 
 if the language I find here reported in the Intelligencer as 
 his, is really the expression of his deliberate opinion. 
 [Mr. Thompson rose to explain.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. I shall want an explanation of another 
 matter from the gentleman, and he may explain both when 
 I have stated it fully. I read from the report of that gen- 
 tleman's remarks in the National Intelligencer : — 
 
 " Docs the gentleman, even in the latitude which he gives to the right of 
 petition, think that it includes slaves^ If he does not, he has wilfully viola- 
 ted the rules of the House, and the feelings of its members." 
 
 [Mr. Thompson was on his legs again to explain. — Mr. 
 Adams. I have not done yet. There is more of it to 
 come. — He then continued reading — ] 
 
 " Does that gentleman know, that there are laws in all the slave states, 
 and here, for the punishment of those who excite insurrection? I can tell 
 him that there are such things as Gra7id Juries ; and if, sir, the juries of this 
 District have, as I doubt not they have, proper intelligence and spirit, he 
 may j'et be made amenable to another tribunal, and we may yet see an in- 
 cendiar}' brought to condign punishment."* 
 
 * The above report is known to have been written by Mr. Thompson him- 
 self, but the last clause of the quotation is not correctly reported. The pre- 
 cise language of Mr. Thompson was — " It is a violation of the criminal law 
 of this District. What is the difference between presenting the petitions of 
 slaves to be emancipated, and aiding them to escape ? My life on it, if the 
 gentleman has the courage to carry it thus far, and will present that petition 
 •^my life on it, we shall yet see him within the walls of a penitentiary ! " — 
 Reporter. 
 
S6 SPEECH OF i. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 [Mr. Waddy Thompson was now permitted to explain. 
 He stated he had thought there was not a human being 
 who believed that slaves had a right to petition, untd he 
 heard, with astonishment, that gentleman avow that he 
 held that slaves had a right to petition. As to the other 
 portion of what the gentleman had read, at the time the 
 remark was made, he (Mr. T.) understood that the paper 
 the gentleman called the attention of the House to, was 
 a petition from slaves for the abolition of slavery. I did 
 characterize it as an incendiary act, the presenting of 
 such a petition ; and any person, in my judgment as a 
 lawyer, is amenable to the laws, who will present a 
 petition from slaves for the abolition of slavery. Had I 
 known the character of the petition, I certainly should 
 not have made those remarks. I take the responsibility, 
 personally and direct, of every one of those epithets, so 
 far as they apply to a petition from slaves for the abolition 
 of slavery. I do not now apply it to tlie gentleman from 
 Massachusetts.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. The House may take the explanation 
 of the gentleman as they please. There, sir, stands the 
 sentiment — there is the printed language, in which the 
 gentleman threatened me with indictment by a grand 
 jury of the District, as a felon and an incendiary, for 
 iDords spoken in this House ! The gentleman has again 
 avowed it, and declares that, if the petition had been for 
 abolition, and I had presented it, he would not only have 
 brought me to the bar to be censured by this House, or 
 have voted to expel me, but he would have invoked upon 
 my head the vengeance of the grand jury of this 
 District ! Yes, sir, he would make a member of this 
 House, for words spoken in this House, amenable to the 
 grand and petit juries of the District of Columbia ! Sir, 
 the only answer I make to such a threat from that gentle- 
 man, is to invite him, when he returns home to his con- 
 stituents, to study a little the Jirst principles of civil 
 liberty ! That gentleman appears here the representative 
 of slaveholders ; and I should like to be informed, how 
 many there are of such representatives on this floor, who 
 
SPEECH OP J. Q. ADAMS. 67 
 
 endorse that sentiment. [" I do not," exclaimed Mr. 
 Underwood, of Kentucky. " I do not," was heard from 
 several other voices.] Is it to be tolerated, that, for any 
 thing a member says on this floor, though it were blas- 
 phemy or treason, he is to be held accountable and 
 punished by a grand and petit jury of the District, and 
 not by this House ? If that is the doctrine of the slave- 
 holding representatives on this floor, let it, in God's 
 name, go forth, and let us see what the people of this 
 nation think of such a sentiment, and of those who make 
 such an avowal. 
 
 Mr. Wise, of Virginia, rose. — Does any man say he 
 will endorse that sentiment for the South'? 
 
 Mr. Adams. I only say, let those of the South who 
 will endorse it, avow it. I want the country should know 
 who they are. 
 
 Mr. Wise. I will not endorse it. If I believed that 
 the members of this House were amenable in any way, as 
 such, to the juries of this District, I would not hold a 
 seat here for one moment. Sir, this petty tribunal of the 
 District, to which, it is suggested, the people of the 
 United States, in the persons of their representatives, are 
 to be held amenable, is notoriously under the dictation 
 of the President, and is selected by an officer of his 
 appointment. Have we not seen the Executive dictating 
 to the Senate and to this House, and calling upon mem- 
 bers to purge themselves of contempt? 
 
 [Mr. Waddy Thompson was brought up again. He 
 referred, he said, to the laws of South Carolina, and, by 
 those laws, if any member of the Legislature should 
 present a petition from slaves, he would be liable to 
 indictment by a grand jury.] 
 
 Mr. Adams. That may do for a Southern Legislature, 
 to help out the gentleman ; and if it is the law of South 
 Carolina, that the members of her Legislature are held 
 amenable to petit and grand juries, for words spoken in 
 debate, God Almighty receive my thanks that I am not a 
 citizen of South Carolina! [Great sensation. Mr. 
 Pickens, of South Carolina, rose, apparently to explain 
 this subject.] 
 
58 SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 Mr. Adams, (waving his hand.) I cannot yield the 
 floor to that gentleman. Sir, in Great Britain, which we 
 call a monarchy, the legislative body corresponding to 
 this House — the Commons — cannot elect their Speaker 
 without the approbation of the King. Suppose, sir, a 
 member of this House should propose to send a message 
 to the President for his approval of our choice of a 
 Speaker. What would be the opinion of that act, by the 
 slaveholding representatives themselves? Then would 
 be the time, if ever, to send the member who should make 
 such a proposition, to the grand jury. 
 
 Well, sir, the first act of the Speaker chosen by the 
 British Commons, subject to the approval of the King, is 
 to demand of the King freedom of speech for the Com- 
 mons, and the King never sends them to the grand juries 
 of Westminster to settle it. 
 
 I will not take up the tim.e of the House on this point, 
 but I cannot express the amazement with which such a 
 doctrine, such a threat, will be regarded when it shall go 
 forth in this debate to all the non-slaveholding states — 
 amazement that, the moment it was uttered, it w^is not 
 instantly rebuked by the Speaker from the Chair. Sir, if 
 I ever could bring my mind to censure a member of this 
 House for any language uttered here, I can conceive of 
 nothing more deserving it, than such a real, gross con- 
 tempt of the House as this. Yf hat, sir ! the members of 
 this House, the representatives of this whole nation, an- 
 swerable to a grand jury of this District for words spoken 
 in this House! The members from New England, from 
 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and tlie free 
 Western States, amenable to grand juries of the District 
 of Columbia for their acts as representatives ! liable to be 
 tried as felons, and punished as incendiaries, for present- 
 ing, or ^'giving color to tJie idea" that they m.ay present, 
 petitions not exactly agreeable to certain gentlemen from 
 the South ! Sir, if that is the condition upon which we 
 hold OUT seats here, and exercise our functions as the 
 representatives of our constituents, the gentleman from 
 Virginia (Mr. Wise) has anticipated me in what I had 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 59 
 
 to say ; and that is, that, if grand juries, constituted as 
 they will be here, if they are to be made the avengers of 
 whatever may be said or done in this House, how long 
 will it be before the gentleman from South Carolina him- 
 self (Mr. Waddy Thompson) will have to answer before a 
 grand and petit jury of the District, as an incendiary, for 
 words spoken here against the Executive 1 And I ask 
 him with what firmness or freedom he could resist execu- 
 tive power, if, for every word he utters, he is to be held 
 amenable to a grand jury selected by the marshal, an offi- 
 cer appointed by the President ? Let that gentleman, let 
 every member of this House, ask his own heart, w^ith what 
 confidence, with what boldness, with what freedom, with 
 what firmness, he would give utterance to his opinions on 
 this floor, if, for every word, for a mere question asked of 
 the Speaker, involving a question belonging to human free- 
 dom, to the rights of man, he was liable to be tried as a 
 felon or an incendiary, and sent to the penitentiary ! And 
 this jury, selected by an officer of the President, are to be 
 the supreme judges of the sovereign American people, in 
 the persons of their representatives ? Such is the avowed 
 doctrine of the gentleman from South Carolina ; such are 
 his notions of freedom of speech and of civil liberty ! 
 
 I have dwelt long on this topic, and will abridge what 
 I had to say of other matters brought into this debate. I 
 might, perhaps, have been willing to have had the yeas 
 and nays taken on this resolution to censure me, without 
 saying one word ; but it was impossible for me to remain 
 silent without calling on the House to mark and repel 
 this sentiment avowed by the gentleman from South 
 Carolina. I could not pass over such a sentiment uttered 
 on this floor, and not, as it ought to have been, at once 
 put down by the Speaker. 
 
 Sir, I do not know how far the southern gentlemen 
 will endorse that sentiment. Probably I never shall know. 
 What I have said, and more than I have time to say, has 
 been called for by an imperative sense of duty, as I regard 
 it, when such a threat as this has been uttered, though by 
 but a siiisle member of this House. 
 
60 gSPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 Did the gentleman think he could frighten me from my 
 purpose by his threat of a grand jury? If that was his 
 object, let me tell him, he mistook his man. I am not to 
 be frightened from the discharge of a duty by the indig- 
 nation of the gentleman from South Carolina, nor by all 
 the grand juries in the universe. The right by which the 
 national representative holds his seat here, is of vital im- 
 portance, and, that it may be understood, I hope that this 
 debate will go forth and be read by the whole people, and 
 that, among other remarkable things, they will mark this 
 threat of the gentleman from South Carolina. 
 
 Sir, we have heard much of the great superiority of 
 Anglo-Saxon blood. Is there a man living, with a drop 
 of that blood in his veins, who will subscribe to this 
 doctrine of the member from South Carolina? Are these 
 the principles of freedom by which to regulate the delibe- 
 rations of a legislative assembly ? I ask any member of 
 this House what he thinks would be the issue, if a mem- 
 ber of the British House of Commons should rise in his 
 place, and tell another member that, for words spoken 
 there, he should be held amenable to a grand jury of 
 Westminster. Sir, it would be considered too ridiculous 
 for indignation : it would be received with one universal 
 shout of laughter, and from thenceforth subject the author 
 of such a measure to be held up 
 
 " Sacred to ridicule his whole life \ong, 
 And the sad burden of some merry song."* 
 
 [Laughter.] Arraigned, as I have been, Mr. Speaker, 
 on such a variety of charges, changing their ground in 
 such rapid succession, it has been impossible to make my 
 defence with any system or order. All that I say is 
 unavoidably desultory. Whenever my accusers presented 
 the color of an idea, before I could fix it, it was gone, and 
 other ideas of other colors presented in its stead. The 
 gentlemen have performed their parts here like those 
 persons known in theatrical companies by the name of 
 
 * ]Mr. Thompson is a violent opposition member, and'Vehement in his de- 
 nunciations of the President. — Reporter, 
 
SPEECH OP J. Q. ADAMS. 61 
 
 actors of all work, who assume many characters in the 
 same play, and change their dresses so often, that you 
 never know it is the same actor that comes in, in so many 
 different parts, all so unlike. So has it been in the rapid 
 changes of the gentlemen, who, in a variety of characters, 
 have arraigned me as a criminal to be brought to the bar, 
 on the charge of gross contempt, for ^^ giving color to an 
 idea ! " How can I reply to such a charge, or how de- 
 fend myself against the allegation of such a crime '? Such 
 are the attempts made to bring down upon my head the 
 indignation and censure of this House ; a calamity, sir, 
 which I should regard as the heaviest misfortune of a long 
 life, checkered as it has been by many and severe vicissi- 
 tudes. Yes, sir, 1 avow, that, if a vote of censure should 
 pass upon my name, for any act of mine in this Plouse, it 
 would be the heaviest of all calamities that have ever be- 
 fallen me. 
 
 Sir, am I guilty, have I ever been guilty, of contempt to 
 this House? Have I not guarded the honor of this House 
 as a cherished sentiment of my heart 1 Have I not respect- 
 ed this House as the representatives of the whole people of 
 the whole Union 1 Have I ever been regardless of the great 
 representative principle of the people, here exhibited? 
 Have I ever been wanting, as a member of this body, in a 
 proi)er esprit da corps ? Have I not defended the honor 
 of this House on more than one occasion 1 Was I not the 
 first, on a former occasion, to vindicate members of this 
 House from the charge of being susceptible to bribery and 
 corruption — a charge coming from one to whom the major- 
 ity were most devoted ? Have I not defended this House 
 from charges from another quarter, to which I wish no 
 further to allude?* And am I now to be censured for 
 doing what I have not done, or for not doing what I did 
 not do, under pretence of a contempt of this House, in an 
 act which was done from motives of the highest possible 
 respect to this House? for never, in any act of my life, did 
 
 " Referring-, it is presumed, lo the able defence Mr. A. made, tlie last ses- 
 sion, against the attacks of ]Mr. Webster on the majority of the House for 
 voting; the three millions appropriation, on the French question. — Reporter. 
 
 
 
62 SPEECH OF J. a. ADAMS. 
 
 I more consult the respect due to this House^ than in pro- 
 posing the question I put to the Speaker, touching that 
 paper from slaves. 
 
 Sir, if he be an enemy who shall succeed in bringing 
 down upon me, directly or indirectly, the censure of this 
 House — I say, if he be an enemy who votes for this, let 
 him know he has his revenge, his triumph ; for a heavier 
 calamity could never fall upon me on earth ! 
 
 And this brings me to the resolutions before the House.* 
 I object to the first resolution (otfered by Mr, Patton, of 
 Virginia) because it does not meet and answer my question. 
 Let the question be put by yeas and nays, and I am will- 
 ing to record my yea that it is the duty of the House to 
 receive petitions from slaves ; and I shall regard it as of 
 high import to free institutions, if, on full deliberation, the 
 House refuse to say that they will receive petitions from 
 slaves. The resolution does not say whether they will or 
 not. That question, and the only question really before 
 the House, is not met. We do not know whether it is 
 proper or not to present such petitions. But suppose it is 
 not proper. Can there be any offence, before the House 
 have settled or considered that question, for a member 
 respectfully to ask whether it be proper 1 Now, sir, this 
 question is not met, and that is my objection to the first 
 resolution. 
 
 The second resolution touches neither my question nor 
 me, but pounces on an ideal man. It says, " Every mem- 
 
 * The resolutions were as follows : — 
 
 " Resolved, That the right of petition does not belong to slaves of this 
 Union ; that no petition from ihem can be presented to this House, with- 
 out derogating from the rights of the slaveholding states, and endangering 
 the integrity of the Union. 
 
 " Resolved, Tlial every meml:)cr, who shall hereafter present any such 
 petitions to this House, ought to be considered as regardless of the feelings 
 of this House, the rights of the South, and an enemy to the Union. 
 
 " Resolved, That, the Hon. John Quincy Adams having solemnly disclaimed 
 a design of doing any thing disrespectful to the House, in the inquiry he 
 made of the Speaker, as to the right of petition purporting to be from slaves, 
 and having avowed his intention not to offer to present the petition, if the 
 House was of opinion that it ought not to be presented, — therefore all further 
 proceedings as to his conduct now cease." 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 63 
 
 ber who shall hereafter present such petition ought to be 
 considered an enemy to the Union," &c. What is that, sir, 
 but the same threat, indirectly made, which the member 
 from South Carolina (Mr. Waddy Thompson) directly 
 made, of sendinor the man who should present such a pe- 
 tition, to the grand jury of the District of Columbia? 
 This resolution declares that the member who shall 
 hereafter make an attempt to present any such petition, 
 shall be held infamous. Is this another maxim of the 
 slaveholding representatives, touching the freedom of speech 
 in this House? Sir, if that resolution passes, I will sub- 
 mit to it so far as not to present any petitions of slaves, but 
 I shall consider it as a resolution most disgraceful and 
 dishonorable to this House. What, sir ! is any member of 
 this House to be pronounced infamous for offering to aid 
 human misery so far as to present its cry for mercy and 
 relief to this House ? 
 
 But, sir, not only would such a resolution dishonor this 
 body in the eyes of the whole civilized world, it would also 
 limit the rights and the liberties of members of this House, 
 so as, in fact, to surrender them all. If, sir, you can get a 
 vote' to pronounce a member infamous who shall hereafter 
 present a petition from slaves, you have but one step 
 further to take, and that will be easy in the rage of the 
 spirit of party ; you will declare that every man shall be held 
 infamous if he proposes any thing displeasing to the 
 majority. 
 
 As to the third resolution, I ask of the justice of the 
 House not to go for it. It indirectly does what the 
 other resolutions of censure did directly. It says that 
 no further proceedings shall be had against me, because 
 I have disclaimed disrespect, and disavowed an inten- 
 tion which no one had the shadow of a right to im- 
 pute to me. What is this but saying that, if I had not 
 disclaimed and disavowed, I should have been censured 
 and punished by an ex post facto law? but that, having 
 done so, having in fact pleaded guilty, therefore, out of 
 pure kindness, they will forgive me ! Forgive me, sir, for 
 what ? For violating the rules of this House, for contempt 
 
64 SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 of this House ? No, sir. Had I done so, the Speaker 
 should have called me to order, and rebuked me on the 
 instant. And suppose, sir, for a moment, it was a viola- 
 tion of any rule for me to put the question I did to the 
 Speaker, concerning that paper, and this is the offence for 
 which I am to be forgiven, — how stands the case of the 
 Speaker himself, who put that very question to the House ? 
 I don't see but that, if I am to be indicted by a grand jury, 
 the Speaker must be indicted with me, for aiding and 
 abetting. I did but ask the question of the Speaker ; he 
 asked it of the House ; and if there was contempt or crime 
 in either case, which was the greater ? 
 
 Sir, I am content that this whole debate should go forth 
 as it has been begun in the National Intelligencer, I am 
 willing that my constituents, the people of this nation, the 
 world, and all after times, should judge of me and my 
 action on this great moral question. And here I say, that 
 I have not done one single thing I would not do again, 
 under like circumstances ; not one thing have I done that 
 I have not done under the highest and most solemn sense 
 of duty. 
 
 But it is said that I have trifled with the House. That 
 I deny. I have disclaimed, I again disclaim, any such in- 
 tention. No, sir, I had a higher purpose than trifling with 
 this House ; and, having disclaimed such intention, no man 
 has a right to charge me with it. Sir, I never acted under 
 a more solemn sense of duty; I never was more serious 
 in any moment of my life. I take it, therefore, that the 
 last resolution, excusing and forgiving me, will not pass. 
 It is founded on a supposition of disclaimer and retraction 
 on my part. Sir, I renounce all favor from this House on 
 the ground of disclaimer or retraction. I have disclaimed 
 nothing I have done or said. I have retracted nothing : I 
 have done my duty ; and I should do it again, under the 
 same circumstances, if it were to be done to-morrow ! 
 
 Members of this House have accused me of consuming 
 the time of the House, by presenting abolition petitions 
 Is it I, or they, who have done this ? If, sir, gentlemen 
 who are opposed to these petitions had permitted them to 
 
SPEECH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 65 
 
 pass to the table under the rule, no time would have been 
 consumed. If the Speaker had promptly answered my 
 question, no time would have been consumed in this debate, 
 I should never have occupied half an hour on a Monday, 
 in presenting these petitions, which I have felt it due to the 
 petitioners generally, to present singly, had not gentlemen 
 risen to thwart me in the discharge of my duty. Sir, I 
 protest against the consummation of the time, taken up by 
 debates growing out of objections made by other members, 
 being charged to me. I appeal to the House, I appeal to 
 the nation, that it is not L but those who object to my 
 doings in the discharge of my duty, who are answerable 
 for this consumption of time. 
 
 And now, sir, I have done. I have only to add that I 
 had hoped that the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Patton,) 
 seeing that the House could not be brought to a direct 
 censure of me, would have had the magnanimity to with- 
 draw his resolution to effect that object indirectly. He 
 insists upon having the question taken, and the House must 
 decide, 
 
 [The effect of this speech on the House has been rarely 
 if ever exceeded by the influence of any speech on any 
 assembly. It was delivered after the opponents of Mr. A. 
 had inflamed themselves, to the highest exacerbation, by 
 most vehement harangues for four days. The speaker had 
 to address a majority strongly prejudiced against him, and 
 eager to seize any tolerable ground of censure for his 
 previous course in presenting abolition petitions. And 
 yet the result of this speech, under all these disadvantages, 
 was, that but 22 members could be found to vote even 
 indirectly and remotely to censure. All the resolutions 
 were rejected.] 
 
 6* 
 
LINES. 
 
 The editor of the Western Messenger, published in Louisville, Kentucky, 
 December, 1836, copies the following- poem, and says,/^ It is so full of fire aad 
 spirit, so original, so picturesque, that it must give pleasure to every reader. 
 The five verses beginning " Shall our New England," are equal to almost 
 any thing, in Campbell. Though no friends of abolitionism, we like good 
 poetry on any and every subject.." 
 
 LINES 
 
 Written on the passage of Mr. PincMeifs Resolutions, in the 
 House of Representatives, and of Mr. Calhoun^s ^^ Bill of 
 Abominations,^^ in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 By J. G. Whittier. 
 
 Now, by our fathers' aslios! where's the spirit 
 
 Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? 
 Sons of old freemen^ do we but inherit 
 
 Their names- alone-?' 
 
 Ig thq old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us ? 
 
 Stoops the pix)ud manhood of our souls so low,. 
 That Mammon^s lure or Party's wile can win us. 
 To silence now? 
 
 No— when oiir land to ruin^s brink is verging, 
 
 In God's name, let us speak while tlie j« is time I 
 JSqw, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, 
 Silence is crime! 
 
LINES. 
 
 67 
 
 What ! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors 
 
 Rights all our oAvn ? In madness shall we barter, 
 For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, 
 God and our charter ? 
 
 Here shall the statesman seek the free to fetter ? 
 Here Lynch law light its horrid fires on high ? 
 And, in the church, their proud and skilled abettor 
 Make truth a lie ? — 
 
 Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, 
 
 To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? 
 And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel 
 
 Both man and God ? 
 
 Shall our New England stand erect no longer. 
 
 But stoop in chains upon her downward way. 
 Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger 
 Day after day ? 
 
 O, no ; methinks from all her wild, green mountains — 
 
 From valleys v.here her slumbering fathers lie — 
 From her blue rivers and her v/elling fountains, 
 
 And clear, cold sky ; — 
 
 From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry Ocean 
 
 GnaAvs with his surges — from the fisher's skiff. 
 With white sail swaying to tlie billows' motion 
 
 Round rock and cliff; — 
 
 From the free fire-side of her unbought farmer — 
 From her free laborer at his loom and wheel — 
 From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath the hammer, 
 Rings the red steel ; — 
 
LINES. 
 
 From each and all, if God hath not forsaken 
 
 Our land, and left us to an evil choice. 
 Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken 
 A people's voice! 
 
 Startling and stern ! the northern winds shall bear it 
 
 Over Potomac's to St Mary's wave ; 
 And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it 
 
 Within her grave. 
 
 O, let that voice go forth ! The bondman, sighing 
 
 By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, 
 Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, 
 Revive again. 
 
 Let it go forth 1 The miihons who are gazing 
 
 Sadly upon us from afar, shall smile, 
 And, unto God devout thanksgiving raising, 
 
 Bless us the while. 
 
 O, for your ancient freedom, pure and holy, 
 For the deliverance of a groaning earth. 
 For the wronged captive, bleeding, crushed, and lowly. 
 Let it go forth ! 
 
 Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter 
 
 With all they left ye periled and at stake ? 
 Ho ! once again on Freedom's holy altar 
 
 The fire awake ! 
 
 Prayer-strengthened for the trial, come together, 
 
 Put on the harness for the moral fight. 
 And, with the blessing of your heavenly Father, 
 
 MAINTAIN THE RIGHT ! 
 
STANZAS FOE THE TIMES. 
 
 STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.* 
 By J. G. Whittier. 
 
 [First published in the Boston Courier.] 
 
 Is this the land our fathers loved ? 
 
 The freedom which they toiled to win? 
 Is this the soil whereon they moved ? 
 
 Are these the graves they slumber in ? 
 Are we the sons by whom axe borne 
 Tb;'> mantles which the dead have worn ? 
 
 An- ;^shall we crouch above these graves, 
 
 With craven soul and fettered lip ? 
 Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, 
 
 And tremble at the driver's whip ? — 
 Bend to the earth our pliant knees, 
 And speak — but as our masters please ? 
 
 Shall outraged Nature cease to feel ? 
 
 Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow ? 
 Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel — 
 
 The dungeon's gloom — th' assassin's blow 
 Turn back the spirit roused to save 
 Our Truth — our Country — and the Slave ? 
 
 * The " Times " alluded to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting 
 sn Faneuil Hall (August 21, 1835,) for the suppression of freedom of speech, 
 iesi It should endanger the foundations of comraexcial society. 
 
70 STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 
 
 Of human skulls that shrine was made, 
 Wliereon the priests of Mexico 
 
 Before their loathsome idol prayed — 
 Is Freedom's altar fashioned so ? 
 
 And must we yield to Freedom's God, 
 
 As offering meet, the negro's blood ? 
 
 Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought 
 Which well might shame extremest hell ? 
 
 Shall freemen lock th' indignant thougnt ? 
 Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell ? 
 
 Shall Honor bleed ? Shall Truth succumb ? 
 
 Shall pen, and press, and soul, be dumb ? 
 
 No — by each spot of haunted groimd \ 
 
 Where Freedom weeps her children's fall — 
 By Plymouth's rock and Bunker's mounu— 
 
 .By Griswold's stained and shattered wall — - 
 By Warren's ghost — by Langdon's shad-e— 
 By all the memories of our dead !— - 
 
 By their enlarging souls, which burst 
 The bands and fetters round them set — 
 
 By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed 
 Within our inmost bosoms, yet, — 
 
 By all above — around — below — 
 
 Be ours th' indignant answer — NO L 
 
 No — guided by our country's laws, 
 
 For truth and right, and suffering man^ 
 
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES. 71 
 
 Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, 
 
 As Christians may-^-3iS freemen can / 
 Still pouring on unAvilling ears 
 ^hat triith oppression only fears. 
 
 What — shall avc guard our neighbor still, 
 While woman shrieks beneath his rod, 
 And while he tramples down at will 
 
 The image of a common God? 
 Shall watch and ward be round him set 
 Of northern nerve and bayonet ? 
 
 And shall we know and share with him 
 
 The danger and the open shame ? 
 And see our Freedom's light grow dim, 
 
 Which should have filled the world with flame ? 
 And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn, 
 A world's reproach around us burn ? 
 
 Is't not enough that this is borne ? 
 
 And asks our haughty neighbor more ? 
 Must fetters which his slaves have worn 
 
 Clank round the Yankee farmer's door r* 
 Must he be told, beside his plough. 
 What he must speak, and when^ and how ? 
 
 Must he be told his Freedom stands 
 On Slavery's dark foundations strong — 
 
 On breaking hearts and fettered hands, 
 On robbery, and crime, d/id wrong ? — 
 
72 STANZAS FOR THE TIMES, 
 
 That all his fathers taught is vain ? 
 That Freedom's emblem is the chain ? — - 
 
 Its life, its soul, from Slavery drawn ? 
 
 False — foul — profane ! go — teach as well 
 Of holy Truth from Falsehood born ! 
 
 Of heaven refreshed by airs from hell I 
 Of Virtue nursed by open Vice I 
 Of demons planting paradise 1 
 
 Rail on, then, "brethren of the South" — ■ 
 Ye shall not hear the truth the less — 
 
 No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, 
 No fetter on the Yankee's press ! 
 
 From our Green Mountains to the sea, 
 
 One voice shall thunder — We are free ! 
 
 [trWIL.!. BE PUBLISHED, JUNE 1, 
 
 And for sale at 25 Cornhill, Boston, 
 " POEMS, written during the Progress of the Abolition Question 
 in the United States, between the Years 1830 and 1837 ; by 
 John G. Whittiek." — Embellished with a fine English copper- 
 plate engraving, the design suggested by reading Cowpe»'s 
 poem entitled the " Morning Dream." 
 
 
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