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 ill.u.s.trious 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 s.e.x 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 dest.i.tute 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 From the heart where patriotism erects her favorite shrine, and from the hand which is seldom withdrawn when the soldier solicits.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 b.a.l.l.s 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 _pet.i.tioned_--yes, they pet.i.tioned--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 pa.s.sed by him upon those members of the female s.e.x 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 G.o.d. 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 pet.i.tioning 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 pet.i.tion from which this debate took its rise, namely, to the first pet.i.tion I presented here against the annexation--a pet.i.tion consisting of three lines, and signed by two hundred and thirty-eight women of Plymouth, a princ.i.p.al town in my own district. Their words are:
""The undersigned, women of Plymouth (Ma.s.s.), 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 pet.i.tioned under a conviction that the consequence of the annexation would be the advancement of that which is sin in the sight of G.o.d, 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion contains. I do believe slavery to be a sin before G.o.d; 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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. Emanc.i.p.ation, universal emanc.i.p.ation, 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 G.o.d, restoring slavery where it had been extinguished, and vainly dreaming to make it eternal; forming, in the sacred name of liberty, const.i.tutions 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d! And, last of all, both houses of Congress turning a deaf ear to hundreds of thousands of pet.i.tioners, 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 a.s.sured 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, p.r.o.nouncing this licensed robbery alike lawless and unconst.i.tutional." 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 pet.i.tions 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 G.o.d, 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 a.n.a.lyzes 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion, 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 inst.i.tution, 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 a.s.sistant, 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 lat.i.tude, Mercury, at his greatest elongation from the sun, may be seen by a very imperfect naked eye, in the morning twilight, for the s.p.a.ce 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 Inst.i.tution, 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 inst.i.tution 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. .h.i.therto 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.
"In my former letter I proposed that, to preserve entire and unimpaired the Smithsonian fund, as the princ.i.p.al of a perpetual annuity, the annual appropriations from its proceeds should be strictly confined to its annual income; that, a.s.suming the amount of the fund to be five hundred thousand dollars, it should be so invested as to secure a permanent yearly income of thirty thousand; and that it should be committed to an incorporated board of trustees, with a secretary and treasurer, the only person of the board to receive a pecuniary compensation from the fund."
Mr. Adams then refers to a report made by C. F. Mercer, chairman of a committee of the House of Representatives, on the 18th of March, 1826 (during his own administration), relative to the expenses of an Observatory, for much valuable information, and thus proceeds:
"But, as it is desirable that the princ.i.p.al building, the Observatory itself, should be, for the purposes of observation, unsurpa.s.sed by any other edifice constructed for the same purposes, I would devote one year"s interest from the fund to the construction of the buildings; a second and a third to const.i.tute a fund, from the income of which the salaries of the astronomer, his a.s.sistants and attendants, should be paid; a fourth and fifth for the necessary instruments and books; a sixth and seventh for a fund, from the income of which the expense should be defrayed of publishing the ephemeris of observation, and a yearly nautical almanac. These appropriations may be so distributed as to apply a part of the appropriation of each year to each of those necessary expenditures; but for an establishment so complete as may do honor in all time alike to the testator and his trustees, the United States of America, I cannot reduce my estimate of the necessary expense below two hundred thousand dollars.
"My principles for this disposal of funds are these:
"1st. That the most complete establishment of an Astronomical Observatory in the world should be founded by the United States of America; the whole expense of which, both its first cost and its perpetual maintenance, should be amply provided for, without costing one dollar either to the people or to the _princ.i.p.al_ sum of the Smithsonian bequest.
"2d. That, by providing from the income alone of the fund a supplementary fund, from the interest of which all the salaries shall be paid, and all the annual expenses of publication shall be defrayed, the fund itself would, instead of being impaired, acc.u.mulate with the lapse of years. I do most fervently wish that this principle might be made the fundamental law, now and hereafter, so far as may be practicable, of all the appropriations of the Smithsonian bequest.
"3d. That, by the establishment of an Observatory upon the largest and most liberal scale, and providing for the publication of a yearly nautical almanac, knowledge will be dispersed among men, the reputation of our country will rise to honor and reverence among the civilized nations of the earth, and our navigators and mariners on every ocean be no longer dependent on English or French observers or calculators for tables indispensable to conduct their path upon the deep."
Mr. Adams, about this period, expressed himself with deep dissatisfaction at the course pursued by the President relative to the Smithsonian bequest, combining the general expression of a disposition to aid his views with apparently a total indifference as to the expenditure of the money. "The subject," said he, "weighs deeply upon my mind. The private interests and sordid pa.s.sions into which that fund has already fallen fill me with anxiety and apprehensions that it will be squandered upon cormorants, or wasted in electioneering bribery. Almost all the heads of department are indifferent to its application according to the testator"s bequest; distinguished senators open or disguised enemies to the establishment of the inst.i.tution in any form. The utter prostration of public spirit in the Senate, proved by the selfish project to apply it to the establishment of a university; the investment of the whole fund, more than half a million of dollars, in Arkansas and Michigan state stocks; the mean trick of filching ten thousand dollars, last winter, to pay for the charges of procuring it, are all so utterly discouraging that I despair of effecting anything for the honor of the country, or even to accomplish the purpose of the bequest, the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. It is hard to toil through life for a great purpose, with a conviction that it will be in vain; but possibly seed now sown may bring forth some good fruits. In my report, in January, 1836, I laid down all the general principles on which the fund should have been accepted and administered. I was then wholly successful. My bill pa.s.sed without opposition, and under its provisions the money was procured and deposited in the treasury in gold. If I cannot prevent the disgrace of the country by the failure of the testator"s intention, I can leave a record to future time of what I have done, and what I would have done, to accomplish the great design, if executed well. And let not the supplication to the Author of Good be wanting."
In November, 1838, the anti-slavery party made the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia a test question, on which Mr.
Adams remarked: "This is absurd, because notoriously impracticable. The house would refuse to consider the question two to one." Writing on the same subject, in December of the same year, "I doubt," said he, "if there are five members in the house who would vote to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia at this time. The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the councils of Omnipotence I cannot doubt. It is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement retrograde, before its final progress to consummation."
In January, 1839, Mr. Adams, in presenting a large number of pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery, asked leave to explain to the house his reasons for the course he had adopted in relation to pet.i.tions of this character. He asked it as a courtesy. He had received a ma.s.s of letters threatening him with a.s.sa.s.sination for this course. His real position was not understood by his country. The house having granted the leave, he proceeded to state that, although he had zealously advocated the right to pet.i.tion for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, he was not himself then, prepared to grant their prayer; that, if the question should be presented at once, he should vote against it.
He knew not what change might be produced on his mind by a full and fair discussion, but he had not yet seen any reason to change his opinion, although he had read all that abolitionists themselves had written and published on the subject. He then presented the pet.i.tions, and moved appropriate resolutions.
On the 21st of February, 1839, Mr. Adams presented to the house several resolutions, proposing, in the form prescribed by the const.i.tution of the United States, 1st. That after the 4th day of July, 1842, there shall be no hereditary slavery in the United States, and that every child born on and after that day, within the United States and their territories, shall be born free. 2d. That, with exception of Florida, there shall henceforth never be admitted into this Union any state the const.i.tution of which shall tolerate within the same the existence of slavery. 3d That from and after the 4th of July, 1848, there shall be neither slavery nor slave-trade at the seat of government of the United States.
Mr. Adams proceeded to state that he had in his possession a paper, which he desired to present, and on which these resolutions were founded. It was a pet.i.tion from John Jay, and forty-three most respectable citizens of the city of New York. Being here interrupted by violent cries of "Order!" he at that time refrained from further pressing the subject.
On the 30th of April, 1839, Mr. Adams delivered before the Historical Society of New York a discourse ent.i.tled "The Jubilee of the Const.i.tution;" it being the fiftieth year after the inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States. Of all his occasional productions, this was, probably, the most labored. In it he traces the history of the const.i.tution of the United States from the period antecedent to the American Revolution, through the events of that war, to the circ.u.mstances which led to its adoption, concluding with a solemn admonition to adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, practically interwoven into the const.i.tution of the United States.
In October, 1839, in an address to the inhabitants of Braintree, of which "Education" was the topic, he traces that of New England to the Christian religion, of which the Bible was the text-book and foundation, and the revelation of eternal life. He then ill.u.s.trated the history of that religion by recapitulating the difficulties it had to encounter through ages of persecution; commented upon the ecclesiastical hierarchy established under Constantine, and the abuses arising from the policy of the Church of Rome, until their final exposure by Martin Luther, out of which emanated the Protestant faith. The display of learning, the power of reasoning, and the suggestive thoughts, in this occasional essay, exhibit the extent and depth of his studies of the sacred volume, to which, more than to any other, the strength of his mind had been devoted.
About this time was published in the newspapers a letter from Mr. Adams to Dr. Thomas Sewall, concerning his two letters on Phrenology, and giving his own opinion on that subject in the following characteristic language: "I have never been able to persuade myself to think of the _science of Phrenology_ as a _serious_ speculation. I have cla.s.sed it with judicial astrology, with alchemy, and with _augury_; and, as Cicero says he wonders how two Roman augurs could have looked each other in the face without laughing, I have felt something of the same surprise that two learned phrenologists can meet without like temptation. But, as it has been said of Bishop Berkeley"s anti-material system, that he has demonstrated, beyond the possibility of refutation, what no man in his senses can believe, so, without your a.s.sistance, I should never have been able to encounter the system of thirty-three or thirty-five faculties of the immortal soul all cl.u.s.tered on the blind side of the head. I thank you for furnishing me with argument to meet the doctors who pack up the five senses in thirty-five parcels of the brain. I hope your lectures will be successful in recalling the sober sense of the _material_ philosophers to the dignity of an _imperishable_ mind."
With an urgent request, contained in a letter dated the 28th of June, 1839, for his opinion on the const.i.tutionality and expediency of the law, then recently sanctioned by two Legislatures of Ma.s.sachusetts, called the license law, Mr. Adams declined complying, for reasons stated at length. He regarded the purpose of the law as "in the highest degree pure, patriotic, and benevolent." It had, however, given rise to two evils, which were already manifested. "The first, a spirit of concerted and determined resistance to its execution. The second, a concerted effort to turn the dissatisfaction of the people with the law into a political engine against the administration of the state. There is no duty more impressive upon the Legislature than that of accommodating the exercise of its power to the spirit of those over whom it is to operate.
Abstract right, deserving as it is of the profound reverence of every ruler over men, is yet not the principle which must guide and govern his conduct; and whoever undertakes to make it exclusively his guide will soon find in the community a resistance that will overrule him and his principles. The Supreme Ruler of the universe declares himself, in the holy Scriptures, that, in dealing with the prevarications of his chosen people, he sometimes gave them statutes which were _not good_."
On the 2d December, 1839, at the opening of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, the clerk began to call the roll of the members, according to custom.
When he came to New Jersey, he stated that five seats of the members from that state were contested, and that, not feeling himself authorized to decide the question, he should pa.s.s over those names, and proceed with the call. This gave rise to a general and violent debate on the steps to be pursued under such circ.u.mstances. It was declared by Mr.
Adams that the proceeding of the clerk was evidently preconcerted to exclude the five members from New Jersey from voting at the organization of the house. Innumerable questions were raised, but the house could not agree upon the mode of proceeding, and from the 2d to the 5th it remained in a perfectly disorganized state, and in apparently inextricable confusion. The remainder of the scene is thus described, in the newspapers, by one apparently an eye-witness:
"Mr. Adams, from the opening of this scene of confusion and anarchy, had maintained a profound silence. He appeared to be engaged most of the time in writing. To a common observer he seemed to be reckless of everything around him. But nothing, not the slightest incident, escaped him.
"The fourth day of the struggle had now commenced. Mr. Hugh A.
Garland, the clerk, was directed to call the roll again. He commenced with Maine, as usual in those days, and was proceeding towards Ma.s.sachusetts. I turned and saw that Mr. Adams was ready to get the floor at the earliest moment possible. His eye was riveted on the clerk, his hands clasped the front edge of his desk, where he always placed them to a.s.sist him in rising. He looked, in the language of Otway, like a "fowler eager for his prey,"
""New Jersey!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Hugh Garland, "and--"
"Mr. Adams immediately sprang to the floor.
""I rise to interrupt the clerk," was his first exclamation.