Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

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In July, 1838, Mr. Adams published a speech "on the right of the
people, men and women, to petition; on the freedom of speech and debate
in the House of Representatives of the United States; on the
resolutions of seven State Legislatures, and on the petitions of more
than one hundred thousand petitioners, relative to the annexation of
Texas to this Union;" the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on
these subjects being under the consideration of the House. In this
publication he states and analyzes the course of that "conspiracy for
the dismemberment of Mexico, the reinstitution of slavery in the
dismembered portion of that republic, and the acquisition, by purchase
or by conquest, of the territory, to sustain, spread, and perpetuate,
the _moral and religious blessing_ of slavery in this Union;" and which
he declares to be in the full tide of successful experiment. But a few
only of the topics illustrated in this publication, which expanded into
a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty octavo pages, can here be touched.
It is, in fact, a history of the disgraceful proceedings by which that
conspiracy effected its purpose.

Mr. Adams inquired of the committee whether they had given as much as
five minutes' consideration to the resolutions of the Legislatures, and
the very numerous petitions of individuals, which had been referred to
them. One of the committee, Hugh S. Legare, of South Carolina, answered,
he had not read the papers, nor looked into one of them. Mr. Adams
exclaimed, "I denounce, in the face of the country, the proceeding of
the committee, in reporting upon papers referred to them, without
looking into any one of them, as utterly incorrect. I assert, as a great
general principle, that when resolutions from Legislatures of states,
and petitions from a vast multitude of our fellow-citizens, on a subject
of deep, vital importance to the country, are referred to a committee of
this house, if that committee make up an opinion without looking into
such resolutions and memorials, the committee betray their trust to
their constituents and this house. I give this out to the nation."

A long and exciting debate, lasting from the 16th of June to the 7th of
July, on the report of the committee relative to the annexation of
Texas, ensued; the heat and violence of which were chiefly directed upon
Mr. Adams.

One of the topics agitated during this debate arose upon a speech of
Mr. Howard, of Maryland. Among the petitions against the annexation of
Texas were many signed by women. On these Mr. Howard said, he always
felt a regret when petitions thus signed were presented to the house,
relating to political subjects. He thought these females could have a
sufficient field for the exercise of their influence in the discharge
of their duties to their fathers, their husbands, or their children,
cheering the domestic circle, and shedding over it the mild radiance of
the social virtues, instead of rushing into the fierce struggles of
political life. He considered it _discreditable_, not only to their
particular section of country, but also to the national character.

Mr. Adams immediately entered into a long and animated defence of the
right of petition by women; in the course of which he asked "whether
women, by petitioning this house in favor of suffering and distress,
perform an office 'discreditable' to themselves, to the section of the
country where they reside, and to this nation. The gentleman says that
women have no right to petition Congress on political subjects. Why?
Sir, what does the gentleman understand by 'political subjects'?
Everything in which the house has an agency--everything which relates
to peace and relates to war, or to any other of the great interests of
society. Are women to have no opinions or actions on subjects relating
to the general welfare? Where did the gentleman get this principle? Did
he find it in sacred history--in the language of Miriam the prophetess,
in one of the noblest and most sublime songs of triumph that ever met
the human eye or ear? Did the gentleman never hear of Deborah, to whom
the children of Israel came up for judgment? Has he forgotten the deed
of Jael, who slew the dreaded enemy of her country? Has he forgotten
Esther, who, by HER PETITION, saved her people and her country? Sir, I
might go through the whole of the sacred history of the Jews to the
advent of our Saviour, and find innumerable examples of women, who not
only took an active part in the politics of their times, but who are
held up with honor to posterity for doing so Our Saviour himself, while
on earth, performed that most stupendous miracle, the raising of
Lazarus from the dead, at _the petition of a woman_! To go from sacred
history to profane, does the gentleman there find it 'discreditable'
for women to take any interest or any part in political affairs? In the
history of Greece, let him read and examine the character of Aspasia,
in a country in which the character and conduct of women were more
restricted than in any modern nation, save among the Turks. Has he
forgotten that Spartan mother, who said to her son, when going out to
battle, 'My son, come back to me _with_ thy shield, or _upon_ thy
shield'? Does he not remember Cloelia and her hundred companions, who
swam across the river, under a shower of darts, escaping from Porsenna?
Has he forgotten Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who declared that
her children were her jewels? And why? Because they were the champions
of freedom. Does he not remember Portia, the wife of Brutus and
daughter of Cato, and in what terms she is represented in the history
of Rome? Has he not read of Arria, who, under imperial despotism, when
her husband was condemned to die by a tyrant, plunged the sword into
her own bosom, and, handing it to her husband, said, 'Take it, Paetus,
it does not hurt,' and expired?

"To come to a later period,--what says the history of our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors? To say nothing of Boadicea, the British heroine in the time
of the Caesars, what name is more illustrious than that of Elizabeth?
Or, if he will go to the Continent, will he not find the names of Maria
Theresa of Hungary, the two Catharines of Russia, and of Isabella of
Castile, the patroness of Columbus, the discoverer in substance of this
hemisphere, for without her that discovery would not have been made?
Did she bring 'discredit' on her sex by mingling in politics? To come
nearer home,--what were the women of the United States in the struggle
of the Revolution? Or what would the men have been but for the
influence of the women of that day? Were they devoted _exclusively_ to
the duties and enjoyments of the fireside? Take, for example, the
ladies of Philadelphia."

Mr. Adams here read a long extract from Judge Johnson's life of General
Greene, relating that during the Revolutionary War a call came from
General Washington stating that the troops were destitute of shirts, and
of many indispensable articles of clothing. "And from whence," writes
Judge Johnson, "did relief arrive, at last? From the heart where
patriotism erects her favorite shrine, and from the hand which is seldom
withdrawn when the soldier solicits. The ladies of Philadelphia
immortalized themselves by commencing the generous work, and it was a
work too grateful to the American fair not to be followed up with zeal
and alacrity."

Mr. Adams then read a long quotation from Dr. Ramsay's history of South
Carolina, "which speaks," said he, "trumpet-tongued, of the daring and
intrepid spirit of patriotism burning in the bosoms of the ladies of
that state." After reading an extract from this history, Mr. Adams
thus comments upon it: "Politics, sir! 'rushing into the vortex of
politics!'--glorying in being called rebel ladies; refusing to attend
balls and entertainments, but crowding to the prison-ships! Mark this,
and remember it was done with no small danger to their own persons, and
to the safety of their families. But it manifested the spirit by which
they were animated; and, sir, is that spirit to be charged here, in
this hall where we are sitting, as being 'discreditable' to our
country's name? Shall it be said that such conduct was a national
reproach, because it was the conduct of women who left 'their domestic
concerns, and rushed into the vortex of politics'? Sir, these women did
more; they _petitioned_--yes, they petitioned--and that in a matter of
politics. It was for the _life of Hayne_."

In connection with this eloquent defence of the right of women to
interfere in politics, of which the above extracts are but an outline,
Mr. Adams thus applies the result to the particular subject of
controversy:

"The broad principle is _morally wrong, vicious_, and the very
reverse of that which ought to prevail. Why does it follow that
women are fitted for nothing but the cares of domestic life: for
bearing children, and cooking the food of a family; devoting all
their time to the domestic circle,--to promoting the immediate
personal comfort of their husbands, brothers, and sons? Observe,
sir, the point of departure between the chairman of the committee
and myself. I admit that it is their duty to attend to these
things. I subscribe fully to the elegant compliment passed by him
upon those members of the female sex who devote their time to these
duties. But I say that the correct principle is that women are not
only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do
depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their
country, of humanity, and of their God. The mere departure of woman
from the duties of the domestic circle, far from being a reproach
to her, is a virtue of the highest order, when it is done from
purity of motive, by appropriate means, and towards a virtuous
purpose. There is the true distinction. The motive must be pure,
the means appropriate, and the purpose good; and I say that woman,
by the discharge of such duties, has manifested a virtue which is
even above the virtues of mankind, and approaches to a superior
nature. That is the principle I maintain, and which the chairman of
the committee has to refute, if he applies the position he has
taken to the mothers, the sisters, and the daughters, of the men of
my district who voted to send me here. Now, I aver further, that,
in the instance to which his observation refers, namely, in the act
of petitioning against the annexation of Texas to this Union, the
motive was pure, the means appropriate, and the purpose virtuous,
in the highest degree. As an evident proof of this, I recur to the
particular petition from which this debate took its rise, namely,
to the first petition I presented here against the annexation--a
petition consisting of three lines, and signed by two hundred and
thirty-eight women of Plymouth, a principal town in my own
district. Their words are:

"'The undersigned, women of Plymouth (Mass.), thoroughly aware of
the sinfulness of slavery, and the consequent impolicy and
disastrous tendency of its extension in our country, do most
respectfully remonstrate, with all our souls, against the annexation
of Texas to the United States as a slaveholding territory.'

"These are the words of their memorial; and I say that, in
presenting it here, their motive was pure, and of the highest order
of purity. They petitioned under a conviction that the consequence
of the annexation would be the advancement of that which is sin in
the sight of God, namely, slavery. I say, further, that the means
were appropriate, because it is Congress who must decide on the
question; and therefore it is proper that they should petition
Congress, if they wish to prevent the annexation. And I say, in the
third place, that the end was virtuous, pure, and of the most
exalted character, namely, to prevent the perpetuation and spread of
slavery throughout America. I say, moreover, that I subscribe, in my
own person, to every word the petition contains. I do believe
slavery to be a sin before God; and that is the reason, and the only
insurmountable reason, why we should refuse to annex Texas to this
Union."

On the 28th July, 1838, to an invitation from the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society to attend their celebration of the anniversary of
the day upon which slavery was abolished in the colonial possessions of
Great Britain, Mr. Adams responded:

"It would give me pleasure to comply with this invitation; but my
health is not very firm. My voice has been affected by the intense
heat of the season; and a multiplicity of applications, from
societies political and literary, to attend and address their
meetings, have imposed upon me the necessity of pleading the
privilege of my years, and declining them all.

"I rejoice that the defence of the cause of human freedom is falling
into younger and more vigorous hands. That, in three-score years
from the day of the Declaration of Independence, its self-evident
truths should be yet struggling for existence against the degeneracy
of an age pampered with prosperity, and languishing into servitude,
is a melancholy truth, from which I should in vain attempt to shut
my eyes. But the summons has gone forth. The youthful champions of
the rights of human nature have buckled and are buckling on their
armor; and the scourging overseer, and the lynching lawyer, and the
servile sophist, and the faithless scribe, and the priestly
parasite, will vanish before them like Satan touched by the spear of
Ithuriel. I live in the faith and hope of the progressive
advancement of Christian liberty, and expect to abide by the same in
death. You have a glorious though arduous career before you; and it
is among the consolations of my last days that I am able to cheer
you in the pursuit, and exhort you to be steadfast and immovable in
it. So shall you not fail, whatever may betide, to reap a rich
reward in the blessing of him that is ready to perish, upon your
soul."

In August, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to the inhabitants of
his district, in which, after stating what had been done on the same
subject by the Legislature of Massachusetts and other states, he
proceeded to recapitulate the wrongs which had been done to the
colored races of Africa on this continent, "which have indeed been of
long standing, but which in these latter days have been aggravated
beyond all measure. To repair the injustice of our fathers to these
races had been, from the day of the Declaration of Independence, the
conscience of the good and the counsel of the wise rulers of the land.
Washington, by his own example in the testamentary disposal of his
property,--Jefferson, by the unhesitating convictions of his own mind,
by unanswerable argument and eloquent persuasion, addressed almost
incessantly, throughout a long life, to the reason and feelings of his
countrymen,--had done homage to the self-evident principles which the
nation, at her birth, had been the first to proclaim. Emancipation,
universal emancipation, was the lesson they had urged on their
contemporaries, and held forth as transcendent and irremissible duties
to their children of the present age. Instead of which, what have we
seen? Communities of slaveholding braggarts, setting at defiance the
laws of nature and nature's God, restoring slavery where it had been
extinguished, and vainly dreaming to make it eternal; forming, in the
sacred name of liberty, constitutions of government interdicting to the
legislative authority itself that most blessed of human powers, the
power of giving liberty to the slave! Governors of states urging upon
their Legislatures to make the exercise of the freedom of speech to
propagate the right of the slave to freedom felony, without benefit of
clergy! Ministers of the gospel, like the priest in the parable of the
Good Samaritan, coming and looking at the bleeding victim of the
highway robber, and passing on the other side; or, baser still,
perverting the pages of the sacred volume to turn into a code of
slavery the very word of God! Philosophers, like the Sophists of
ancient Greece, pulverized by the sober sense of Socrates, elaborating
theories of _moral slavery_ from the alembic of a sugar plantation, and
vaporing about lofty sentiments and generous benevolence to be learnt
from the hereditary bondage of man to man! Infuriated mobs, murdering
the peaceful ministers of Christ for the purpose of extinguishing the
light of a printing-press, and burning with unhallowed fire the hall of
freedom, the orphan's school, and the church devoted to the worship of
God! And, last of all, both houses of Congress turning a deaf ear to
hundreds of thousands of petitioners, and quibbling away their duty to
read, to listen, and consider, in doubtful disputations whether they
shall receive, or, receiving, refuse to read or hear, the complaints
and prayers of their fellow-citizens and fellow-men!"

Mr. Adams proceeds, in a like spirit of eloquent plainness, to denounce
the violation of that beneficent change which both Washington and
Jefferson had devised for the red man of the forest, and had assured to
him by solemn treaties pledging the faith of the nation, and by laws
interdicting by severe penalties the intrusion of the white man on his
domain. "In contempt of those treaties," said he, "and in defiance of
those laws, the sovereign State of Georgia had extended her jurisdiction
over these Indian lands, and lavished, in lottery-tickets to her people,
the growing harvests, the cultivated fields, and furnished dwellings, of
the Cherokee, setting at naught the solemn adjudication of the Supreme
Court of the United States, pronouncing this licensed robbery alike
lawless and unconstitutional." He then proceeds, in a strain of severe
animadversion, to reprobate the conduct of the Executive administration,
in "truckling to these usurpations of Georgia;" and reviews that of
Congress, in refusing "the petitions of fifteen thousand of these
cheated and plundered people," when thousands of our own citizens joined
in their supplications.

In this letter Mr. Adams states and explains the origin of the treaty of
peace and alliance between Southern nullification and Northern
pro-slavery, and the nature and consequences of that alliance. In the
course of his illustrations on this subject he repels, with an
irresistible power of argument, the attempt of the slaveholder to sow
the seeds of discord among the freemen of the North. "The condition of
master and slave is," he considered, "by the laws of nature and of God,
a state of perpetual, inextinguishable war. The slaveholder, deeply
conscious of this, soothes his soul by sophistical reasonings into a
belief that this same war still exists in free communities between the
capitalist and free labor." The fallacy and falsehood of this theory he
analyzes and exposes, and proceeds to state and reason upon various
measures of Congress connected with these topics, at great length, and
with laborious elucidation.[4]

[4] For this letter see _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series,
vol. V., p. 55.

On the 27th of October, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to the
district he represented in Congress, in which he touched on those points
of national policy which most deeply affected his mind. Among many
remarks worthy of anxious thought, which subsequent events have
confirmed and are confirming, he traces the "smothering for nearly three
years, in legislative halls, the right of petition and freedom of
debate," to the influence of slavery, "which shrinks, and will shrink,
from the eye of day. Northern subserviency to Southern dictation is the
price paid by a Northern administration for Southern support. The people
of the North still support by their suffrages the men who have truckled
to Southern domination. I believe it impossible that this total
subversion of every principle of liberty should be much longer submitted
to by the people of the free states of this Union. But their fate is in
their own hands. If they choose to be represented by slaves, they will
find servility enough to represent and betray them. The suspension of
the right of petition, the suppression of the freedom of debate, the
thirst for the annexation of Texas, the war-whoop of two successive
Presidents against Mexico, are all but varied symptoms of a deadly
disease seated in the marrow of our bones, and that deadly disease is
slavery."

When, in the latter part of June, 1838, news of the success of Mr. Rush
in obtaining the Smithsonian bequest, and information that he had
already received on account of it more than half a million of dollars,
were announced to the public, Mr. Adams lost no time in endeavoring to
give a right direction to the government on the subject. He immediately
waited upon the President of the United States, and, in a conversation
of two hours, explained the views he entertained in regard to the
application of that fund, and entreated him to have a plan prepared, to
recommend to Congress, for the foundation of the institution, at the
commencement of the next session. "I suggested to him," said Mr. Adams,
"the establishment of an Astronomical Observatory, with a salary for an
astronomer and assistant, for nightly observations and periodical
publications; annual courses of lectures upon the natural, moral, and
political sciences. Above all, no jobbing, no sinecure, no monkish
stalls for lazy idlers. I urged the deep responsibility of the nation to
the world and to all posterity worthily to fulfil the great object of
the testator. I only lamented my inability to communicate half the
solicitude with which my heart is on this subject full, and the
sluggishness with which I failed properly to pursue it." "Mr. Van
Buren," Mr. Adams added, "received all this with complacency and
apparent concurrence of opinion, seemed favorably disposed to my views
and willing to do right, and asked me to name any person whom I thought
might be usefully consulted."

The phenomena of the heavens were constantly observed and often recorded
by Mr. Adams. Thus, on the 3d of October, 1838, he writes: "As the clock
struck five this morning, I saw the planets Venus and Mercury in
conjunction, Mercury being about two thirds of a sun's disk below and
northward of Venus. Three quarters of an hour later Mercury was barely
perceptible, and five minutes after could not be traced by my naked eye,
Venus being for ten minutes longer visible. I ascertained, therefore,
that, in the clear sky of this latitude, Mercury, at his greatest
elongation from the sun, may be seen by a very imperfect naked eye, in
the morning twilight, for the space of one hour. I observed, also, the
rapidity of his movements, by the diminished distance between these
planets since the day before yesterday."

In the following November he again writes: "To make observations on the
movements of the heavenly bodies has been, for a great portion of my
life, a pleasure of gratified curiosity, of ever-returning wonder, and
of reverence for the great Creator and Mover of these innumerable
worlds. There is something of awful enjoyment in observing the rising
and the setting of the sun. That flashing beam of his first appearing
upon the horizon; that sinking of the last ray beneath it; that
perpetual revolution of the Great and Little Bear around the pole; that
rising of the whole constellation of Orion from the horizon to the
perpendicular position, and his ride through the heavens with his belt,
his nebulous sword, and his four corner stars of the first magnitude,
are sources of delight which never tire. Even the optical delusion, by
which the motion of the earth from west to east appears to the eye as
the movement of the whole firmament from east to west, swells the
conception of magnificence to the incomprehensible infinite."

When one of his friends expressed a hope that we should hereafter know
more of the brilliant stars around us, Mr. Adams replied: "I trust so. I
cannot conceive of a world where the stars are not visible, and, if
there is one, I trust I shall never be sent to it. Nothing conveys to my
mind the idea of eternity so forcibly as the grand spectacle of the
heavens in a clear night."

To a letter addressed to him by the Secretary of State, by direction of
the President, requesting him to communicate the result of his
reflections on the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. Adams made the following
reply:

"QUINCY, _October 11, 1838_.

"SIR: I have reserved for a separate letter what I proposed to say
in recommending the erection and establishment of an Astronomical
Observatory at Washington, as one and the first application of the
annual income from the Smithsonian bequest, because that, of all
that I have to say, I deem it by far the most important; and
because, having for many years believed that the national character
of our country demanded of us the establishment of such an
institution as a debt of honor to the cause of science and to the
world of civilized man, I have hailed with cheering hope this
opportunity of removing the greatest obstacle which has hitherto
disappointed the earnest wishes that I have entertained of
witnessing, before my own departure for another world, now near at
hand, the disappearance of a stain upon our good name, in the
neglect to provide the means of increasing and diffusing knowledge
among men, by a systematic and scientific continued series of
observations on the phenomena of the numberless worlds suspended
over our heads--the sublimest of physical sciences, and that in
which the field of future discovery is as unbounded as the universe
itself. I allude to the continued and necessary _expense_ of such
an establishment.

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