JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND THE RIGHT OF PETITION

He rests with the immortals; his journey has been long:
For him no wail of sorrow, but a paean full and strong!
So well and bravely has he done the work be found to do,
To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true.
--Whittier.


JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND THE RIGHT OF PETITION

The lot of ex-Presidents of the United States, as a rule, has
been a life of extreme retirement, but to this rule there is one
marked exception. When John Quincy Adams left the White House in
March, 1829, it must have seemed as if public life could hold
nothing more for him. He had had everything apparently that an
American statesman could hope for. He had been Minister to
Holland and Prussia, to Russia and England. He had been a Senator
of the United States, Secretary of State for eight years, and
finally President. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the greatest
part of his career, and his noblest service to his country, were
still before him when he gave up the Presidency.

In the following year (1830) he was told that he might be elected
to the House of Representatives, and the gentleman who made the
proposition ventured to say that he thought an ex-President, by
taking such a position, "instead of degrading the individual
would elevate the representative character." Mr. Adams replied
that he had "in that respect no scruples whatever. No person can
be degraded by serving the people as Representative in Congress,
nor, in my opinion, would an ex-President of the United States be
degraded by serving as a selectman of his town if elected thereto
by the people." A few weeks later he was chosen to the House, and
the district continued to send him every two years from that time
until his death. He did much excellent work in the House, and was
conspicuous in more than one memorable scene; but here it is
possible to touch on only a single point, where he came forward
as the champion of a great principle, and fought a battle for the
right which will always be remembered among the great deeds of
American public men.

Soon after Mr. Adams took his seat in Congress, the movement for
the abolition of slavery was begun by a few obscure agitators. It
did not at first attract much attention, but as it went on it
gradually exasperated the overbearing temper of the Southern
slaveholders. One fruit of this agitation was the appearance of
petitions for the abolition of slavery in the House of
Representatives. A few were presented by Mr. Adams without
attracting much notice; but as the petitions multiplied, the
Southern representatives became aroused. They assailed Mr. Adams
for presenting them, and finally passed what was known as the gag
rule, which prevented the reception of these petitions by the
House. Against this rule Mr. Adams protested, in the midst of the
loud shouts of the Southerners, as a violation of his
constitutional rights. But the tyranny of slavery at that time
was so complete that the rule was adopted and enforced, and the
slaveholders, undertook in this way to suppress free speech in
the House, just as they also undertook to prevent the
transmission through the mails of any writings adverse to
slavery. With the wisdom of a statesman and a man of affairs, Mr.
Adams addressed himself to the one practical point of the
contest. He did not enter upon a discussion of slavery or of its
abolition, but turned his whole force toward the vindication of
the right of petition. On every petition day he would offer, in
constantly increasing numbers, petitions which came to him from
all parts of the country for the abolition of slavery, in this
way driving the Southern representatives almost to madness,
despite their rule which prevented the reception of such
documents when offered. Their hatred of Mr. Adams is something
difficult to conceive, and they were burning to break him down,
and, if possible, drive him from the House. On February 6, 1837,
after presenting the usual petitions, Mr. Adams offered one upon
which he said he should like the judgment of the Speaker as to
its propriety, inasmuch as it was a petition from slaves. In a
moment the House was in a tumult, and loud cries of "Expel him!"
"Expel him!" rose in all directions. One resolution after another
was offered looking toward his expulsion or censure, and it was
not until February 9, three days later, that he was able to take
the floor in his own defense. His speech was a masterpiece of
argument, invective, and sarcasm. He showed, among other things,
that he had not offered the petition, but had only asked the
opinion of the Speaker upon it, and that the petition itself
prayed that slavery should not be abolished. When he closed his
speech, which was quite as savage as any made against him, and
infinitely abler, no one desired to reply, and the idea of
censuring him was dropped.

The greatest struggle, however, came five years later, when, on
January 21, 1842, Mr. Adams presented the petition of certain
citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying for the dissolution
of the Union on account of slavery. His enemies felt. that now,
at last, he had delivered himself into their hands. Again arose
the cry for his expulsion, and again vituperation was poured out
upon him, and resolutions to expel him freely introduced. When he
got the floor to speak in his own defense, he faced an excited
House, almost unanimously hostile to him, and possessing, as he
well knew, both the will and the power to drive him from its
walls. But there was no wavering in Mr. Adams. "If they say they
will try me," he said, "they must try me. If they say they will
punish me, they must punish me. But if they say that in peace and
mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain and cast away their
mercy, and I ask if they will come to such a trial and expel me.
I defy them. I have constituents to go to, and they will have
something to say if this House expels me, nor will it be long
before the gentlemen will see me here again." The fight went on
for nearly a fortnight, and on February 7 the whole subject was
finally laid on the table. The sturdy, dogged fighter,
single-handed and alone, had beaten all the forces of the South
and of slavery. No more memorable fight has ever been made by one
man in a parliamentary body, and after this decisive struggle the
tide began to turn. Every year Mr. Adams renewed his motion to
strike out the gag rule, and forced it to a vote. Gradually the
majority against it dwindled, until at last, on December 3, 1844,
his motion prevailed. Freedom of speech had been vindicated in
the American House of Representatives, the right of petition had
been won, and the first great blow against the slave power had
been struck.

Four years later Mr. Adams fell, stricken with paralysis, at his
place in the House, and a few hours afterward, with the words,
"This is the last of earth; I am content," upon his lips, he sank
into unconsciousness and died. It was a fit end to a great public
career. His fight for the right of petition is one to be studied
and remembered, and Mr. Adams made it practically alone. The
slaveholders of the South and the representatives of the North
were alike against him. Against him, too, as his biographer, Mr.
Morse, says, was the class in Boston to which he naturally
belonged by birth and education. He had to encounter the bitter
resistance in his own set of the "conscienceless respectability
of wealth," but the great body of the New England people were
with him, as were the voters of his own district. He was an old
man, with the physical infirmities of age. His eyes were weak and
streaming; his hands were trembling; his voice cracked in moments
of excitement; yet in that age of oratory, in the days of Webster
and Clay, he was known as the "old man eloquent." It was what he
said, more than the way he said it, which told. His vigorous mind
never worked more surely and clearly than when he stood alone in
the midst of an angry House, the target of their hatred and
abuse. His arguments were strong, and his large knowledge and
wide experience supplied him with every weapon for defense and
attack. Beneath the lash of his invective and his sarcasm the
hottest of the slaveholders cowered away. He set his back against
a great principle. He never retreated an inch, he never yielded,
he never conciliated, he was always an assailant, and no man and
no body of men had the power to turn him. He had his dark hours,
he felt bitterly the isolation of his position, but he never swerved.
He had good right to set down in his diary, when the gag rule
was repealed, "Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God."

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