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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 pæan full and strong! So well and bravely has he done the work he found to do, To justice, freedom, duty, God, and man forever true.

-Whittier.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND THE

RIGHT OF PETITION

TH

HE 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

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