Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

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"But the curse fastened by the progress of Christian charity and of
human rights upon the African slave-trade could not rest there. If
the African slave-trade was piracy, the coasting American
slave-trade could not be innocent, nor could its aggravated
turpitude be denied. In the sight of the same God who abhors the
iniquity of the African slave-trade, neither the American
slave-trade nor slavery itself can be held guiltless. From the
suppression of the African slave-trade, therefore, the British
Parliament, impelled by the irresistible influence of the British
people, proceeded to point the battery of its power against slavery
itself. At the expense of one hundred millions of dollars, it
abolished slavery, and emancipated all the slaves in the British
transatlantic colonies; and the government entered upon a system of
negotiation with all the powers of the world for the ultimate
extinction of slavery throughout the globe.

"The utter and unqualified inconsistency of slavery, in any of its
forms, with the principles of the North American Revolution, and the
Declaration of our Independence, had so forcibly struck the Southern
champions of our rights, that the abolition of slavery and the
emancipation of slaves was a darling project of Thomas Jefferson
from his first entrance into public life to the last years of his
existence. But the associated wealth of the slaveholders outweighed
the principles of the Revolution, and by the constitution of the
United States a compromise was established between slavery and
freedom. The extent of the sacrifice of principle made by the North
in this compromise can be estimated only by its practical effects.
The principle is that the House of Representatives of the United
States is a representation only of the persons and freedom of the
North, and of the persons, property, and slavery, of the South. Its
practical operation has been to give the balance of power in the
house, and in every department of the government, into the hands of
the minority of numbers. For practical results look to the present
composition of your government in all its departments. The President
of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of
the House, are all slaveholders. The Chief Justice and four out of
the nine Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States are
slaveholders. The commander-in-chief of your army and the general
next in command are slaveholders. A vast majority of all the
officers of your navy, from the highest to the lowest, are
slaveholders. Of six heads of the executive departments, three are
slaveholders; securing thus, with the President, a majority in all
cabinet consultations and executive councils. From the commencement
of this century, upwards of forty years, the office of Chief Justice
has always been held by slaveholders; and when, upon the death of
Judge Marshall, the two senior justices upon the bench were citizens
of the free states, and unsurpassed in eminence of reputation both
for learning in the law and for spotless integrity, they were both
overlooked and overslaughed by a slaveholder, far inferior to either
of them in reputation as a lawyer, and chiefly eminent for his
obsequious servility to the usurpations of Andrew Jackson, for which
this unjust elevation to the Supreme Judicial bench was the reward.

"As to the house itself, if an article of the constitution had
prescribed, or a standing rule of the house had required, that no
other than a slaveholder should ever be its Speaker, the regulation
could not be more rigorously observed than it is by the compact
movements of the slave representation in the house. Of the last six
speakers of the house, including the present, every one has been a
slaveholder. It is so much a matter of course to see such a person
in the chair, that, if a Northern man but thinks of aspiring to the
chair, he is only made a laughing-stock for the house.

"With such consequences staring us in the face, what are we to think
when we are told that the government of the United States is a
democracy of numbers--a government by a majority of the people? Do
you not see that the one hundred representatives of persons,
property, and slavery, marching in solid phalanx upon every question
of interest to their constituents, will always outnumber the one
hundred and forty representatives only of persons and freedom,
scattered as their votes will always be by conflicting interests,
prejudices, and passions?

"But this is not all. The second party division in the house to
which I have alluded is political, and known at present by the
names of Whigs and Democrats, or Locofocos. The latter are
remarkable for an exquisite tenderness of affection for _the
people_, and especially for the poor, provided their skins are
white, and against the rich. But it is no less remarkable that the
princely slaveholders of the South are among the most thoroughgoing
of the Democrats; and their alliance with the Northern Democracy is
one of the cardinal points of their policy."

The residue of this address is devoted to a searching and severe
examination of the whole course of President Tyler's administration,
showing that "the sectional division of parties--in other words, the
conflict between freedom and slavery--is the axle round which the
administration of the national government revolves." "The political
divisions with him, and with all Southern statesmen of his stamp, are
mere instruments of power to purchase auxiliary support to the cause of
slavery even from the freemen of the North."

In closing this most illustrative address, he apologizes to his
constituents for any language he may have used in debate which might be
deemed harsh or acrimonious, and asks them to consider the adversaries
with whom he had to contend; the virulence and rancor, unparalleled in
the history of the country, with which he had been pursued; and to
remember that, "for the single offence of persisting to assert the right
of the people to petition, and the freedom of speech and of the press,
he had been twice dragged before the house to be censured and expelled."
One of his assailants, Thomas F. Marshall, had declared, in an address
to his constituents, his motives for the past, and his purposes for the
future, in the following words:

"Though petitions to dissolve the Union be poured in by thousands,
I shall not again interfere on the floor of Congress, since the
house have virtually declared that there is nothing contemptuous or
improper in offering them, and are willing again to afford Mr.
Adams an opportunity of sweeping all the strings of discord that
exist in our country. I acted as I thought for the best, being
sincerely desirous to check that man, who, if he could be removed
from the councils of the nation, or _silenced_ on the exasperating
subject to which he seems to have devoted himself, _none other, I
believe, could be found hardy enough, or bad enough, to fill his
place_."

"Besides this special and avowed malevolence against me," Mr. Adams
remarks,--"this admitted purpose to expel or silence me, for the sake
of brow-beating all other members of the free representation, by
establishing over them the reign of terror,--a peculiar system of
tactics in the house has been observed towards me, by _silencers_ of
the slave representation and their allies of the Northern Democracy."

The system of tactics to which he alludes was, first, to turn him out
of the office of chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and,
this failing, to induce a majority of the servile portion of that
committee to refuse any longer to serve with him; their purpose being
exactly that of Mr. Marshall, to remove him from the councils of the
nation, or to silence him, for the sake of _intimidating_ all others by
"an ostentatious display of a common determination not to serve with
any man who would not submit to the gag-rule, and would persist in
presenting abolition petitions." Mr. Adams then illustrates the
powerful effect of such movements to overawe members from the free
states.

"Another practice," he observed, "of this communion of Southern,
sectional, and Locofoco antipathy against me is, that I never can take
part in any debate upon an important subject, be it only upon a mere
abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of personal invective in return.
Language has no word of reproach or railing that is not hurled at me;
and the rules of the house allow me no opportunity to reply till every
other member of the house has had his turn to speak, if he pleases. By
another rule every debate is closed by a majority whenever they get
weary of it. The previous question, or a motion to lay the subject on
the table, is interposed, and I am not allowed to reply to the grossest
falsehoods and most invidious misrepresentations."

This course of party tactics Mr. Adams exhibits by a particular
narrative of the misrepresentation to which he had been subjected,
closing his statement with the following acknowledgment: "I must do many
of the members of the House of Representatives from the South the
justice to say that their treatment of me is dictated far more by the
passions and prejudices of their constituents than by their own. Were it
not for this curse of slavery, there are some of them with whom I should
be on terms of the most intimate and confidential friendship. There are
many for whom I entertain high esteem, respect, and affectionate
attachment. There are among them those who have stood by me in my
trials, and scorned to join in the league to sacrifice me as a terror to
others."

In September, 1842, at the invitation of the Norfolk County Temperance
Society, Mr. Adams delivered at Quincy an address,--not perhaps in
coincidence with the prevailing expectations of that society, but in
perfect unison with his own characteristic spirit of independence. He
instituted an inquiry into the effect of the _principles_ of total
abstinence from the use of spirituous liquors, the administration of
pledges, or, in other words, the contracting of engagements by vows;
and examined the whole subject with reference to the essential
connection which exists between temperance and religion. In the course
of his argument he maintains that the moral principles inculcated by
the whole tenor of the Old Testament, with regard to temperance,
are,--1. That the _temperate_ use of wine is innocent, and without sin.
2. That excess in it is a heinous sin. 3. That the voluntary assumption
of a vow or pledge of total abstinence is an effort of exalted virtue,
and highly acceptable in the sight of God. 4. That the habit of excess
in the use of wine is an object of unqualified abhorrence and disgust.
He concluded with a warning to his fellow-citizens to "stand fast in
the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage;" and, after applauding the members of
the Norfolk County Temperance Society for their attempts to suppress
intemperance, declaring it a holy work, and invoking the blessing of
Heaven on their endeavors, he bids them "go forth as missionaries of
Christianity among their own kindred. Go, with the commendation of the
Saviour to his apostles when he first sent them forth to redeem the
world: 'Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' In
the ardor of your zeal for moral reform forget not the rights of
personal freedom. All _excess_ is of the nature of intemperance.
Self-government is the foundation of all our political and social
institutions; and it is by self-government alone that the laws of
temperance can be enforced.... Above all, let no tincture of party
politics be mingled with the pure stream from the fountain of
temperance."

The spirit of this address, and the intimate knowledge of the Scriptures
Mr. Adams possessed, will be illustrated by the following extract:

"Throughout the whole of the Old Testament the vine is represented
as one of the most precious blessings bestowed by the Creator upon
man. In the incomparable fable of Jotham, when he lifted up his
voice on the summit of Mount Gerizim, and cried to the men of
Shechem, 'Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken
unto you,' he told them that when the trees of the forest went
forth to anoint them a king to reign over them, they offered the
crown successively to the olive-tree, the fig-tree, and the _vine_.
They all declined to accept the royal dignity; and when it came to
the turn of the vine to assign the reasons for his refusal, he
said, 'Should I leave my _wine_, which cheereth God and man, and go
to be promoted over the trees?' In the one hundred and fourth
Psalm,--that most magnificent of all descriptions of the glory, the
omnipotence, and the goodness of the Creator, God,--wine is
enumerated among the richest of his blessings bestowed upon man.
'He causeth the grass to grow,' says the Psalmist, 'for the cattle,
and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out
of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil
to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man's
heart.'

"But, while wine was thus classed among the choicest comforts and
necessaries of life, the cautions and injunctions against the
inordinate use of it are repeated and multiplied in every variety
of form. 'Wine is a mocker,' says Solomon (Prov. 20:1); 'strong
drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.'
'He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine
and oil shall not be rich.' (21:17.) 'Who hath woe? who hath
sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds
without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry _long_ at
the wine; they that go _to seek_ mixed wine. Look not thou upon the
wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it
moveth itself aright,'--say, like sparkling Champagne.--'At the
_last_ it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine
eyes shall behold strange wonders, and thine heart shall utter
perverse things; yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the
midst of the sea, or as he that lieth on the top of a mast. They
have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have
beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it
yet again.' Never was so exquisite a picture of drunkenness and the
drunkard painted by the hand of man.

"Yet in all this there is no interdict upon the _use_ of wine.
The caution and the precept are against excess."

On the 29th of May, 1843, Mr. Adams delivered before the Massachusetts
Historical Society a discourse in celebration of the Second Centennial
Anniversary of the New England Confederacy of 1643. This work is
characterized by that breadth and depth of research for which he was
distinguished and eminently qualified. It includes traces of the early
settlements of Virginia, New England, Pennsylvania, and New York; of the
causes of each, and the spirit in which they were made and conducted,
and of the principles which they applied in their intercourse with the
aboriginals of the forest. He then proceeds to give an account of the
confederation of the four New England colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New Haven, in 1643, with appropriate statements of the
principles and conduct of the founders of each settlement, and of the
character and motives of the leaders of each of them.

The origin, motives, and objects of that confederation, he explains;
analyzing the distribution of power between the commissioners of the
whole confederacy and among the separate governments of the colonies,
and showing that it combined the same identical principles with those
which gathered and united the thirteen English colonies as the prelude
to the Revolution which severed them forever from their national
connection with Great Britain; and that the New England Confederacy of
1643 was the model and prototype of the North American Confederacy of
1774.

His sketch of the founder of the Colony of Rhode Island will give a
general idea of the spirit and bearing of this discourse:

"Roger Williams was a man who maybe considered the very
impersonation of a combined conscientious and contentious spirit.
Born in the land of Sir Hugh Evans and Captain Fluellen, educated at
the University of Oxford, at the very period when the monarchical
Episcopal Church of England was purging herself, as by fire, from
the corruptions of the despotic and soul-degrading Church of Rome,
he arrived at Boston in February, 1630, about half a year after the
landing of the Massachusetts Colony of Governor Winthrop. He was an
eloquent preacher, stiff and self-confident in his opinions;
ingenious, powerful, and commanding, in impressing them upon others;
inflexible in his adherence to them; and, by an inconsistency
peculiar to religious enthusiasts, combining the most amiable and
affectionate sympathies of the heart with the most repulsive and
inexorable exclusions of conciliation, compliance, or intercourse,
with his adversaries in opinion.

"On his first arrival he went to Salem, and there soon made himself
so acceptable by his preaching, that the people of Mr. Skelton's
church invited him to settle with them as his colleague. But he had
broached, and made no hesitation in maintaining, two opinions
imminently dangerous to the very existence of the Massachusetts
Colony, and certainly not remarkable for that spirit of charity or
toleration upon which he afterwards founded his own government, and
which now, in after ages, constitutes his brightest title to renown.
The first of these opinions was that the royal charter to the Colony
of Massachusetts was a nullity, because the King of England had no
right to grant lands in foreign countries, which belonged of right
to their native inhabitants. This opinion struck directly at all
right of property held under the authority of the royal charter,
and, followed to its logical conclusions, would have proved the
utter impotence of the royal charter to confer power of government,
any more than it could convey property in the soil.

"The other opinion was that the Church of Boston was criminal for
having omitted to make a public declaration of repentance for having
held communion with the Church of England before their emigration;
and upon that ground he had refused to join in communion with the
Church of Boston.

"By the subtlety and vehemence of his persuasive powers he had
prevailed upon Endicott to look upon the cross of St. George in the
banners of England as a badge of idolatry, and to cause it actually
to be cut out of the flag floating at the fort in Salem. The red
cross of St. George in the national banner of England was a grievous
and odious eye-sore to multitudes, probably to a great majority, of
the Massachusetts colonists; but, in the eyes of the government of
the colony, it was the sacred badge of allegiance to the monarchy at
home, already deeply jealous of the purposes and designs of the
Puritan colony."

On the 4th of July, 1843, Mr. Adams, in a letter addressed to the
citizens of Bangor, in Maine, declining their invitation to deliver an
address on the 1st of August, the anniversary of British emancipation of
slavery in the West Indies, thus expressed his views on that subject:

"The extinction of SLAVERY from the face of the earth is a problem,
moral, political, religious, which at this moment rocks the
foundations of human society throughout the regions of civilized
man. It is indeed nothing more nor less than the consummation of
the Christian religion. It is only as _immortal_ beings that all
mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the
Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that
all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the
affirmation had been that all men are born with immortal souls;
for, take away from man his soul, the immortal spirit that is
within him, and he would be a mere tamable beast of the field, and,
like others of his kind, would become the property of his tamer.
Hence it is, too, that, by the law of nature and of God, man can
never be made the property of man. And herein consists the fallacy
with which the holders of slaves often delude themselves, by
assuming that the test of property is human law. The soul of one
man cannot by human law be made the property of another. The owner
of a slave is the owner of a living corpse; but he is not the owner
of a man."

In illustration of this principle he observes that "the natural
equality of mankind, affirmed by the signers of the Declaration of
Independence to be _held up_ by them as self-evident truth, was not so
held by their enemies. Great Britain held that sovereign power was
unlimitable, and the natural equality of mankind was a fable. France
and Spain had no sympathies for the rights of human nature. Vergennes
plotted with Gustavus of Sweden the revolution in Sweden from liberty
to despotism. Turgot, shortly after our Declaration of Independence,
advised Louis Sixteenth that it was for _the interest_ of France and
Spain that the insurrection of the Anglo-American colonies _should be
suppressed_. But none of them foresaw or imagined what would be the
consequence of the triumphant establishment in the continent of North
America of an Anglo-Saxon American nation on the foundation of the
natural equality of mankind, and the inalienable rights of man."

Mr. Adams then states and reasons upon these consequences in Europe and
the United States: the abolition of slavery by the judicial decision of
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, three years after the Declaration of
Independence. Since that day there has not been a slave within that
state. The same principle is corroborated by the fact that the
Declaration of Independence imputes slavery in Virginia to George the
Third, as one of the crimes which proved him to be a tyrant, unfit to
rule a free people; and that at least twenty slaveholders, if not
thirty, among whom were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, avowed
abolitionists, were signers of that Declaration.

He next states that "the result of the North American revolutionary war
had prepared the minds of the people of the British nation to
contemplate with calm composure the new principle engrafted upon the
association of the civilized race of man, the self-evident truth, the
natural equality of mankind and the rights of man." He then introduces
Anthony Benezet, a member of the society of Friends, and Granville
Sharp, an English philanthropist, "blowing the single horn of human
liberty and the natural equality of mankind against the institution of
slavery, practised from time immemorial by all nations, ancient and
modern; supported by the denunciation of the traffic in slaves by the
popular writers both in France and England,--by Locke, Addison, and
Sterne, as well as by Raynal, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire;
succeeded by the association of Thomas Clarkson and two or three
Englishmen together, for the purpose of arraying the power of the
British empire for the total abolition of slavery throughout the earth."
The success of that association he next illustrates,--until this
"emanation of the Christian faith is now, under the cross of St. George,
overflowing from the white cliffs of Albion, and sweeping the
slave-trade and slavery from the face of the terraqueous globe." He
proceeds:

"People of that renowned island!--children of the land of our
forefathers!--proceed, proceed in this glorious career, till the
whole earth shall be redeemed from the greatest curse that ever has
afflicted the human race. Proceed until millions upon millions of
your brethren of the human race, restored to the rights with which
they were endowed by your and their Creator, but of which they have
been robbed by ruffians of their own race, shall send their choral
shouts of redemption to the skies in blessings upon your names. O,
with what pungent mortification and shame must I confess that in the
transcendent glories of that day our names will not be associated
with yours! May Heaven in mercy grant that we may be spared the
deeper damnation of seeing our names recorded, not among the
liberators, but with the oppressors of mankind!"

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