Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

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In seeking for a principle to justify his vote, he could find it
nowhere but in the war power and its limitation, as expressed in the
constitution of the United States by the words "_the common defence and
general welfare_." The war power was in this respect different from the
peace power. The former was derived from, and regulated by, the laws
and usages of nations. The latter was limited by regulations, and
restricted by provisions, prescribed within the constitution itself.
All the powers incident to war were, by necessary implication,
conferred on the government of the United States. This was the power
which authorized the house to pass this resolution. There was no other.
"It is upon this principle," said Mr. Adams, "that I shall vote for
this resolution, and _did vote against_ the vote reported by the
slavery committee, 'that Congress possess no constitutional authority
to interfere with the institution of slavery.' I do not admit that
there is, even among the peace powers of Congress, no such authority;
but in many ways Congress not only have the authority, but are bound to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the states." Of this he
cites many instances, and asks if, in case of a servile insurrection,
Congress would not have power to interfere, and to supply money from
the funds of the whole Union to suppress it.

In this speech Mr. Adams exposes the effects of the slave influence in
the United States, by the measures taken to bring about a war with
Mexico. 1. By the proposal that she should cede to us a territory large
enough to constitute nine states equal in extent to Kentucky. 2. By
making this proposition at a time when swarms of land-jobbers from the
United States were covering these Mexican territories with slaves, in
defiance of the laws of Mexico by which slavery had been abolished
throughout that republic. 3. By the authority given to General Gaines
to invade the Mexican republic, and which had brought on the war then
raging, which was for the reestablishment of slavery in territories
where it had been abolished. It was a war, on the part of the United
States, of conquest, and for the extension of slavery. Mr. Adams then
foretold, what subsequent events proved, that the war then commencing
would be, on the part of the United States, "a war of aggression,
conquest, and for the reestablishment of slavery where it has been
abolished. In that war the banners of _freedom_ will be the banners
of Mexico, and your banners--I blush to speak the word--will be the
banners of slavery."

The nature of that war, its dangers, and its consequences, Mr. Adams
proceeded to analyze, and to show the probability of an interference on
the part of Great Britain, who "will probably ask you a perplexing
question--by what authority you, with freedom, independence, and
democracy, on your lips, are waging a war of extermination, to forge new
manacles and fetters instead of those which are falling from the hands
and feet of men? She will carry emancipation and abolition with her in
every fold of her flag; while your stars, as they increase in numbers,
will be overcast by the murky vapors of oppression, and the only portion
of your banners visible to the eye will be the blood-stained stripes of
the taskmaster."

"Mr. Chairman," continued Mr. Adams, "are you ready for all these wars?
A Mexican war; a war with Great Britain, if not with France; a general
Indian war; a servile war; and, as an inevitable consequence of them
all, a civil war;--for it must ultimately terminate in a war of colors,
as well as of races. And do you imagine that while, with your eyes
open, you are wilfully kindling these wars, and then closing your eyes
and blindly rushing into them,--do you imagine that, while in the very
nature of things your own Southern and South-western States must be
the Flanders of these complicated wars, the battle-field upon which the
last great conflict must be fought between slavery and emancipation,--do
you imagine that your Congress will have no constitutional authority to
interfere with the institution of slavery, _in any way_, in the states
of this confederacy? Sir, they must and will interfere with it, perhaps
to sustain it by war, perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace; and
they will not only possess the constitutional power so to interfere,
but they will be bound in duty to do it by the express provisions of
the constitution itself.

"From the instant that your slaveholding states become the theatre of
war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of
Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every
way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for
slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the state burdened with
slavery to a foreign power.

"Little reason have the inhabitants of Georgia and of Alabama to
complain that the government of the United States has been remiss or
neglectful in protecting them from Indian hostilities. The fact is
directly the reverse. The people of Alabama and Georgia are now
suffering the recoil of their own unlawful weapons. Georgia, sir,
Georgia, by trampling upon the faith of our national treaties with the
Indian tribes, and by subjecting them to her state laws, first set the
example of that policy which is now in the process of consummation by
this Indian war. In setting this example she bade defiance to the
authority of the government of this nation. She nullified your laws; she
set at naught your executive and judicial guardians of the common
constitution of the land. To what extent she carried this policy, the
dungeons of her prisons, and the records of the Supreme Judicial Court
of the United States, can tell.

"To those prisons she committed inoffensive, innocent, pious ministers
of the Gospel of truth, for carrying the light, the comforts, the
consolations of that Gospel, to the hearts and minds of those unhappy
Indians. A solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
pronounced that act a violation of your treaties and your laws. Georgia
defied that decision. Your executive government never carried it into
execution. The imprisoned missionaries of the Gospel were compelled to
purchase their ransom from perpetual captivity by sacrificing their
rights as freemen to the meekness of their principles as Christians: and
you have sanctioned all these outrages upon justice, law, and humanity,
by succumbing to the power and the policy of Georgia; by accommodating
your legislation to her arbitrary will; by tearing to tatters your old
treaties with the Indians, and by constraining them, under _peine
forte et dure_, to the mockery of signing other treaties with you,
which, at the first moment when it shall suit your purpose, you will
again tear to tatters, and scatter to the four winds of heaven; till the
Indian race shall be extinct upon this continent, and it shall become a
problem, beyond the solution of antiquaries and historical societies,
_what_ the red man of the forest was.

"This, sir, is the remote and primitive cause of the present Indian
war--your own injustice sanctioning and sustaining that of Georgia and
Alabama. This system of policy was first introduced by the present
administration of your national government. It is directly the reverse
of that system which had been pursued by all the preceding
administrations of this government under the present constitution. That
system consisted in the most anxious and persevering efforts to
civilize the Indians, to attach them to the soil upon which they lived,
to enlighten their minds, to soften and humanize their hearts, to fix
in permanency their habitations, and to turn them from the wandering
and precarious pursuits of the hunter to the tillage of the ground, to
the cultivation of corn and cotton, to the comforts of the fireside, to
the delights of _home_. This was the system of Washington and of
Jefferson, steadily pursued by all their successors, and to which all
your treaties and all your laws of intercourse with the Indian tribes
were accommodated. The whole system is now broken up, and instead of it
you have adopted that of expelling, by force or by compact, all the
Indian tribes from their own territories and dwellings to a region
beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Arkansas,
bordering upon Mexico; and there you have deluded them with the hope
that they will find a permanent abode, a final resting-place from your
never-ending rapacity and persecution. There you have undertaken to
lead the willing, and drive the reluctant, by fraud or by force, by
treaty or by the sword and the rifle--all the remnants of the
Seminoles, the Creeks, of the Cherokees and the Choctaws, and of how
many other tribes I cannot now stop to enumerate. In the process of
this violent and heartless operation you have met with all the
resistance which men in so helpless a condition as that of the Indian
tribes can make.

"Of the _immediate_ causes of the war we are not yet fully informed;
but I fear you will find them, like the remoter causes, all attributable
to yourselves.

"It is in the last agonies of a people forcibly torn and driven from the
soil which they had inherited from their fathers, and which your own
example, and exhortations, and instructions, and treaties, had riveted
more closely to their hearts--it is in the last convulsive struggles of
their despair, that this war has originated; and, if it bring some
portion of the retributive justice of Heaven upon our own people, it is
our melancholy duty to mitigate, as far as the public resources of the
national treasury will permit, the distresses of our own kindred and
blood, suffering under the necessary consequences of our own wrong. I
shall vote for the resolution."

This speech, perhaps one of the most suggestive and prophetic ever made,
appears in none of the newspapers of the time, and was published by Mr.
Adams from his own minutes and recollections.

In September, 1836, Mr. Adams, at the request of the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Common Council of the city of Boston, delivered a eulogy on the life
and character of James Madison.

On the 7th of January, 1837, Mr. Adams offered to present the petition
of one hundred and fifty women for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, objected to its
reception. Mr. Adams said that the proposition not to receive a petition
was directly in the face of the constitution. He hoped the people of
this country would be spared the mortification, the injustice, and the
wrong, of a decision that such petitions should not be received. It was
indeed true that all discussion, all freedom of speech, all freedom of
the press, on this subject, had been, within the last twelve months,
violently assailed in every form in which the liberties of the people
could be attacked. He considered these attacks as outrages on the
constitution of the country, and the freedom of the people, as far as
they went. But the proposition that such petitions should not be
received went one step further. He hoped it would not obtain the
sanction of the house, which could always reject such petitions after
they had been considered. Among the outrages inflicted on that portion
of the people of this country whose aspirations were raised to the
greatest improvement that could possibly be effected in the condition of
the human race,--the total abolition of slavery on earth,--that of
calumny was the most glaring. Their petitions were treated with
contempt, and the petitioners themselves loaded with foul and infamous
imputations, poured forth on a class of citizens as pure and virtuous as
the inhabitants of any section of the United States.

Violent debates and great confusion in the house ensued; but when the
question, "Shall the petition be received?" was put, it was decided in
the affirmative--_one hundred and twenty-seven_ ayes, _seventy-five_
nays. Mr. Adams then moved that the petition should be referred to the
Committee on the District of Columbia. This was superseded by a motion
to lay it on the table, which passed in the affirmative--ayes _one
hundred and fifty_, nays _fifty_.

On the 18th of January, 1837, the House of Representatives passed a
resolution,--one hundred and thirty-nine ayes, sixty-nine nays,--"that
all petitions relating to slavery, without being printed or referred,
shall be laid on the table, and no action shall be had thereon."

On the 6th of February, 1837, Mr. Adams stated that he held in his hand
a paper, on which, before presenting it, he desired to have the decision
of the Speaker. It purported to come from slaves; and he wished to know
if such a paper came within the order of the house respecting petitions.
Great surprise and astonishment were expressed by the slaveholders in
the house at such a proposition. One member pronounced it an infraction
of decorum, that ought to be punished severely. Another said it was a
violation of the dignity of the house, and ought to be taken and burnt.
Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, moved the following resolution:
"Resolved, that the Honorable John Quincy Adams, by the attempt just
made by him to introduce a petition purporting on its face to be from
slaves, has been guilty of a gross disrespect to the house; and that he
be instantly brought to the bar to receive the severe censure of the
Speaker." Charles E. Haynes, of Georgia, moved "to strike out all after
Resolved, and insert 'that John Quincy Adams, a representative from the
State of Massachusetts, has rendered himself justly liable to the
severest censure of this house, and is censured accordingly, for having
attempted to present to the house the petition of slaves.'" Dixon H.
Lewis, of Alabama, offered a modification of Waddy Thompson's
resolution, which he accepted, "that John Quincy Adams, by his attempt
to introduce into the house a petition from slaves, for the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia, committed an outrage on the rights
and feelings of a large portion of the people of this Union, and a
flagrant contempt on the dignity of this house; and, by extending to
slaves a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly invites the slave
population to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called
to the bar of this house, and be censured by the Speaker."

After violent debates and extreme excitement, Mr. Adams rose and said:
"In regard to the resolutions now before the house, as they all concur
in naming me, and charging me with high crimes and misdemeanors, and in
calling me to the bar of the house to answer for my crimes, I have
thought it my duty to remain silent until it should be the pleasure of
the house to act on one or other of those resolutions. I suppose that,
if I shall be brought to the bar of the house, I shall not be struck
mute by the previous question, before I have an opportunity to say a
word or two in my own defence. But, sir, to prevent further consumption
of the time of the house, I deem it my duty to ask them to modify their
resolution. It may be as severe as they propose, but I ask them to
change the matter of fact a little, so that when I come to the bar of
the house, I may not, by a single word, put an end to it. I did not
present the petition, and I appeal to the Speaker to say that I did not.
I said I had a paper purporting to be a petition from slaves. I did not
say what the prayer of the petition was. I asked the Speaker whether he
considered such a paper as included within the general order of the
house that all petitions, memorials, resolutions, and papers, relating
in any way to the subject of slavery, should be laid upon the table. I
intended to take the decision of the Speaker before I went one step
towards presenting, or offering to present, that petition. I stated
distinctly to the Speaker that I should not send the paper to the table
until the question was decided whether a paper from persons declaring
themselves slaves was included within the order of the house. This is
the _fact_."

It having been stated in one of the resolutions that the petition was
for the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams said the gentleman moving it
"must amend his resolution; for, if the house should choose to read this
petition, I can state to them they would find it something very much the
reverse of that which the resolution states it to be; and that if the
gentleman from Alabama still shall choose to bring me to the bar of the
house, he must amend his resolution in a very important particular, for
he probably will have to put into it that my crime has been for
attempting to introduce the petition of slaves that slavery should not
be abolished; and that the object of these slaves, who have sent this
paper to me, is precisely that which he desires to accomplish, and that
they are his auxiliaries, instead of being his opponents."

In respect of the allegation that he had introduced a petition for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, Mr. Adams said: "It
is well known to all the members of this house--it is certainly known
to all petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia--that, from the day I entered this house to the present
moment, I have invariably here, and invariably elsewhere, declared my
opinions to be adverse to the prayer of petitions that call for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. But, sir, it is
equally well known that, from the time I entered this house, down to
the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition,
couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States,
be its object what it may--be the prayer of it that in which I could
concur, or that to which I was utterly opposed. I adhere to the right
of petition; and let me say here that, let the petition be, as the
gentleman from Virginia has stated, from free negroes, prostitutes, as
he supposes,--for he says there is one put on this paper, and he infers
that the rest are of the same description,--_that_ has not altered my
opinion at all. Where is your law which says that the mean, the low,
and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition, if their
moral character is not good? Where, in the land of freemen, was the
right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and
virtue? Petition is supplication--it is entreaty--it is prayer! And
where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the
citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy?
Where is such a law to be found? It does not belong to the most abject
despotism. There is no absolute monarch on earth who is not compelled,
by the constitution of his country, to receive the petitions of his
people, whosoever they may be. The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walk
the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and vilest
in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what does your law
say? Does it say that, before presenting a petition, you shall look
into it, and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and
the mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition
belongs to all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because
it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would
be an additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting."

In the course of this debate Mr. Thompson, of South Carolina, said that
the conduct of Mr. Adams was a proper subject of inquiry by the Grand
Jury of the District of Columbia, and stated that such, in a like case,
would be the proceedings under the law in South Carolina. Mr. Adams, in
reply, exclaimed: "If this is true,--if a member is there made amenable
to the Grand Jury for words spoken in debate,--I thank God I am not a
citizen of South Carolina! Such a threat, when brought before the world,
would excite nothing but contempt and amazement. What! are we from the
Northern States to be indicted as felons and incendiaries, for
presenting petitions not exactly agreeable to some members from the
South, by a jury of twelve men, appointed by a marshal, his office at
the pleasure of the President! If the gentleman from South Carolina, by
bringing forward this resolution of censure, thinks to frighten me from
my purpose, he has mistaken his man. I am not to be intimidated by him,
nor by all the Grand Juries of the universe."

After a debate of excessive exacerbation, lasting for four days, only
twenty votes could be found indirectly and remotely to censure. In the
course of this discussion circumstances made it probable that the names
appended to the petition were not the signatures of slaves, and that
the whole was a forgery, and designed as a hoax upon him. On which
suggestion Mr. Adams stated to the house that he now believed the paper
to be a _forgery_, by a slaveholding master, for the purpose of daring
him to present a petition purporting to be from slaves; that, having
now reason to believe it a forgery, he should not present the petition,
whatever might be the decision of the house. If he should present it at
all, it would be to invoke the authority of the house to cause the
author of it to be prosecuted for the forgery, if there were competent
judicial tribunals, and he could obtain evidence to prove the fact. He
did not consider a forgery committed to deter a member of Congress from
the discharge of his duty as a _hoax_.[5]

[5] _Niles' Weekly Register_, N. S., vol. I., pp. 385--390,
et seq.

In March, 1837, Mr. Adams addressed a series of letters to his
constituents, transmitting his speech vindicating his course on the
right of petition, and his proceedings on the subject of the
presentation of a petition purporting to be from slaves. These letters
were published in a pamphlet, and were at the time justly characterized
as "a triumphant vindication of the right of petition, and a graphic
delineation of the slavery spirit in Congress;" and it was further said
of them, that, "apart from the interest excited by the subjects under
discussion, and viewed only as literary productions, they may be ranked
among the highest literary efforts of the author. Their sarcasm is
Junius-like--cold, keen, unsparing." A few extracts may give an idea of
the spirit and character of this publication.

Commenting on Mr. Thompson's resolution, as modified by Mr. Lewis (p.
249), Mr. Adams exclaims:

"My constituents! Reflect upon the purport of this resolution, which was
immediately accepted by Mr. Thompson as a modification of his own, and
as unhesitatingly received by the Speaker. He well knew I had made no
attempt to introduce to the house a petition from slaves; and, if I had,
he knew I should have done no more than exercise my right as a member of
the house, and that the utmost extent of the power of the house would
have been to refuse to receive the petition. The Speaker's duty was to
reject instantly this resolution, and tell Mr. Lewis and Mr. Thompson
that the first of his obligations was to protect the rights of speech
of members of that house, which I had not in the slightest degree
infringed. But the Speaker was a _master_.

"Observe, too, that in this resolution the notable discovery was first
made that I had directly invited the slaves to insurrection; of which
bright thought Mr. Thompson afterwards availed himself to threaten me
with the Grand Jury of the District of Columbia, as an incendiary and
felon. I pray you to remember this, not on my account, or from the
suspicion that I could or shall ever be moved from my purpose by such
menaces, but to give you _the measure_ of slaveholding freedom of
speech, of the press, of action, of thought! If such a question as
I asked of the Speaker is a direct invitation of the slaves to
insurrection, forfeiting all my rights as representative of the people,
subjecting me to indictment by a grand jury, conviction by a petit jury,
and to an infamous penitentiary cell, I ask you, not what freedom of
speech is left to your representative in Congress, but what freedom of
speech, of the press, and of thought, is left to yourselves.

"There is an express provision of the constitution that Congress shall
pass no law _abridging_ the right of petition; and here is a resolution
declaring that a member ought to be considered as regardless of the
feelings of the house, the rights of the South, and an enemy to the
Union, _for presenting a petition_.

"Regardless of the feelings of the house! What have the feelings of the
house to do with the free agency of a member in the discharge of his
duty? One of the most sacred duties of a member is to present the
petitions committed to his charge; a duty which he cannot refuse or
neglect to perform without violating his oath to support the
constitution of the United States. He is not, indeed, bound to present
all petitions. If the language of the petition be disrespectful to the
house, or to any of its members,--if the prayer of the petition be
unjust, immoral, or unlawful,--if it be accompanied by any manifestation
of intended violence or disorder on the part of the petitioners,--the
duty of the member to present ceases, not from respect for the feelings
of the house, but because those things themselves strike at the freedom
of speech and action as well of the house as of its members. Neither of
these can be in the least degree affected by the mere circumstance of
the condition of the petitioner. Nor is there a shadow of reason why
feelings of the house should be outraged by the presentation of a
petition from slaves, any more than by petitions from soldiers in the
army, seamen in the navy, or from the working-women in a manufactory.

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