in a dilemma-that Mr. Adams was too much for it; and, at last, adjourned, leaving the affair in the position in which they found it.

For several days this subject continued to agitate the house-and the nation. Mr. Adams not only warded off the virulent attacks made upon him, but carried the war so effectually into the camp of his enemies, that, becoming heartily tired of the contest, they repeatedly endeavored to get rid of the whole subject by laying it on the table. To this Mr. Adams objected. | He insisted that it should be thoroughly canvassed. Immense excitement continued, and call after call of the house was made. At length, the subject was brought to a termination by the passage of a preamble and resolution-much softened down, in comparison with what was at first proposed-declaring that the paper cannot be received, and that slaves have no right to petition.

The slave petition in question is believed to have been a counterfeit, manufactured by certain members of congress from slave-holding states, and was sent to Mr. Adams by way of experiment with the double design of ascertaining if he could be imposed upon; and, if the deception succeeded, those who got it up were curious to know if the venerable statesman would redeem his pledge, and present a petition, no matter who it came from. He was too wily not to detect the plot at the outset; he knew that all was a hoax; but he resolved to present the paper, and then turn the tables upon its authors.

His success in thus defeating his opponents on their mad intention of censure, was one of the most signal instances of personal and parliamentary triumph. In In vain did they threaten assassination, indictment before the grand jury, and other proceedings, to seal his lips in silence. In vain, too, did they declare that he should "be made amenable to another tribunal (mob law), and, as an incendiary, be brought to condign punishment." "My life on it," said a southern member, "if he presents that petition from

slaves, we shall yet see him within the walls of the penitentiary." Firm stood the white-haired sage of more than seventy winters, and with withering rebukes repelled his hot-blooded assailants. His clarion voice rang defiantly through the hall, as he said

"Do the gentlemen from the south think they can frighten me by their threats? If that be their object, let me tell them, sir, they have precisely mistaken their man. I am not to be frightened from the discharge of a sacred duty, by their indignation, by their violence, nor, sir, by all the grand juries in the universe. I have done only my duty; and I shall do it again, under the same circumstances, even though they recur to-morrow."

On the twenty-fourth of January, 1842, Mr. Adams presented the petition of fortyfive citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying that congress would immediately take measures peaceably to dissolve the Union of the States: First, because no union can be agreeable which does not present prospects of reciprocal benefits; second, because a vast proportion of the resources of one section of the Union is annually drained to sustain the views and course of another section, without any adequate return; third, because, judging from the history of past nations, such a union, if persisted in, in the present course of things, would certainly overwhelm the whole nation in utter destruction.

Mr. Adams moved that the petition be referred to a select committee, with instructions to report an answer showing the reasons why the prayer of it ought not to be granted.

Immediate and wild excitement followed the presentation of this petition. Mr. Hopkins, of Virginia, moved to burn it in presence of the house. Mr. Wise, of the same state, asked the speaker if it was in order to move to censure any member for presenting such a petition. Mr. Gilmer, also of Virginia, moved a resolution, that Mr. Adams, for presenting such a petition, had justly incurred the censure of the house. Mr. Adams said he hoped

seek no friends, and but a few among those immediately around him. Unexcited, he raised his voice, high-keyed, as was usual with him, but clear, untremulous, and firm. In a moment his infirmities disappeared, although his shaking hand could not but be noticed; trembling not with fear, but with age. At first there was nothing of indignation in his tone, manner, or words. Surprise and cold contempt were all. The thread of his great discourse was mainly his present and past relations to Virginia and Virginians. After gratefully acknowledging his infinite obligations to the great Virginians of the first age of the federal republic, he modestly and unpretendingly recounted the unsought, exalted honors, heaped upon him by Washington, Madison, and Monroe, and detailed with touching simplicity and force some of his leading actions in the discharge of these weighty trusts. In pursuing his remarks, he chanced to fix his eye upon Marshall, who was moving down one of the side-aisles. Instantly, at the suggestion of the moment, he burst forth in a touching appeal to the hallowed memory of Marshall, the venerated and immaculate Virginian, through a long career of judicial honor and usefulness. With a flash of withering scorn, Mr. Adams struck at the unhappy Marshall of another day. A single breath blew all his mock-judicial array into air and smoke. In a tone of insulted majesty and reinvigorated spirit, Mr. Adams then said, in reply to the audacious charge of high treason,

"I call for the reading of the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Read it! read it! and see what that says of the right of a people to reform, to change, to dissolve their government."

The look, the tone, the gesture, of the insulted patriot, at that instant, were most imposing. He seemed to have renewed his youth like the eagles, and his voice was that of sovereign command. The burthen of seventy-five winters rolled off, and he rose above the puny things around him. When the passage of the Declaration was read which solemnly proclaims the right

of reform, revolution, and resistance to oppression, the grand old man thundered

out

"Read that again!"

Looking proudly around on the listening audience, he heard his triumphant vindication sounded forth in the glorious sentences of the nation's Magna Charta, written by Mr. Jefferson, a Virginian. The sympathetic revulsion of feeling was intense, though voiceless; every drop of free, honest blood in that vast assemblage bounded with high impulse, every fiber thrilled with excitement. The members of the house were all gathered around, him, even his persecutors paying involuntary tribute to the 'old man eloquent.' Lord Morpeth was an attentive spectator and auditor; and so were governors, senators, judges, and other high officials, innumerable. A strong exhibition of the facts in the case, mostly in cold, calm, logical, measured sentences, concluded Mr. Adams's effort, and he sat down, vindicated, victorious.

Intemperate debates, with violence undiminished, succeeded, in which all the topics of party censure, from the adoption of the constitution, were collected and heaped upon Mr. Adams, by Marshall, Wise, Gilmer, and others. No description can do justice to the effective eloquence of Mr. Adams in reply,-including amusing particulars of missives he had received from the south threatening him with assassination; among other kindly hints, of this sort, sent through the post-office, being a colored lithograph portrait of himself, with the picturesque annotation of a rifle-ball on the forehead, and a promise that such a remedy would "stop his music."

On the eleventh day of this debate, Mr. Adams, in opening his defense, stated it as his intention to go over the whole affair, and that he should require a great deal more time, in addition to what had already been consumed; but he was willing to forego it all, provided it could be done without sacrificing his rights, the rights of his constituents, and those of the peti

tioners. He then stated, that if any gentleman would make a motion to lay the whole subject-that of which Marshall had been made the champion- on the table, he would forbear to proceed with his defense. This motion was at once made by Mr. Botts, of Virginia, and carried by a vote of one hundred and six to ninety-three. The petition from Haverhill was then refused to be received, threefourths of the house voting against it.

It would appear well-nigh incredible, that a venerable man like Mr. Adams should be able to carry on, for eleven days, almost single-handed, so great a contest. That this was due, in no small degree, to his consummate skill as a parliamentarian, cannot be questioned. The following memorable instance of his power in this respect, will form a fitting close to this chapter.

At the opening of the twenty-sixth congress, the clerk began to can 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 pass 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 circumstances. Innumerable questions were raised, and propositions made, but the house could not agree upon the mode of proceeding, and, from the second to the fifth day, the house remained in a perfectly disorganized state, and in inextricable confusion, the clerk acting as the tool of his party. But the hour of disenthrallment was at hand; a scene was to be presented which would send the mind back to those days when Cromwell exclaimed, "Sir Harry Vane! wo unto you, Sir Harry Vane !"—and in an instant dispersed the famous rump parliament.

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 Massachusetts. Mr. Adams was now observed to be holding himself in readiness 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 assist him in rising. He looked, in the language of Otway, like a 'fowler eager for his prey.'

"New Jersey!" ejaculated Mr. Hugh Garland, "and the clerk has to repeat that

Mr. Adams sprang to the floor!

"I rise to interrupt the clerk," was his first ejaculation.

"Silence, silence!" resounded through the hall. "Hear him, hear him! Hear what he has to say! Hear John Quincy Adams!" was vociferated on all sides.

In an instant, such profound silence. reigned throughout the vast chamber, that the fall of a leaf of paper might have been heard in any part of it; and every eye was riveted on the venerable Nestor of Massachusetts, one of the purest of statesmen and noblest of men! He paused for a moment, and, having given Mr. Garland a withering look, he proceeded to address the dense throng.

"It was not my intention," said he, "to take any part in these extraordinary proceedings. I had hoped that this house. would succeed in organizing itself; that a speaker and clerk would be elected, and that the ordinary business of legislation would have been progressed in. This is not the time, or place, to discuss the merits of the conflicting claimants for seats from New Jersey; that subject belongs to the house of representatives, which, by the constitution, is made the ultimate arbiter of the qualifications of its members. But what a spectacle we here

present! We degrade and disgrace ourselves; we degrade and disgrace our constituents and our country. We do not, and cannot organize; and why? Because the clerk of this house, the mere clerk, whom we create, whom we employ, and whose existence depends upon our will, usurps the throne, and sets us, the representatives, the vicegerents of the whole American people, at defiance, and holds us in contempt! And what is this clerk of yours? Is he to control the destinies of sixteen millions of freemen ? Is he to suspend, by his mere negative, the functions of government, and put an end to this congress? He refuses to call the roll! It is in your power to compel him to call it, if he will not do it voluntarily."

Here he was interrupted by a member, who said that he was authorized to say that compulsion could not reach the clerk, who had avowed that he would resign, rather than call the state of New Jersey. "Well, sir," continued Mr. Adams, "then let him resign, and we may possibly discover some way by which we can get along, without the aid of his all-powerful talent, learning, and genius. If we cannot organize in any other way-if this clerk of yours will not consent to our discharging the trusts confided to us by our constituents, then let us imitate the example of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which, when the colonial governor, Dinwiddie, ordered it to disperse, refused to obey the imperious and insulting mandate, and, like

men

The multitude could not contain or repress their enthusiasm any longer, but saluted the eloquent and indignant speaker, and intercepted him with loud and deafening cheers, which seemed to shake the capitol to its center. The very Genii of applause and enthusiasm seemed to float in the atmosphere of the hall, and every heart expanded with indescribable pride and exultation. The turmoil, the darkness, the very chaos of anarchy, which had for successive days, pervaded the American congress, was dispelled by the magic, the talismanic eloquence of a single man; and,

once more, the wheels of government and of legislation were put in motion.

Having, by this powerful appeal, brought the yet unorganized assembly to a perception of its real position, he submitted a motion requiring the acting clerk to proceed in calling the roll. This and similar motions had already been made by other members. The difficulty, indeed, was just this, that the clerk declined to entertain them. Accordingly, Mr. Adams was immediately interrupted by a burst of voices demanding, "How shall the question be put?" "Who will put the question?" The voice of Mr. Adams was heard above all the tumult, "I intend to put the question myself!" That word brought order out of chaos. There was✓ the master mind.

As soon as the multitude had recovered itself, and the excitement of long and loud resounding plaudits had abated, Mr. Richard Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina, leaped upon one of the desks, waved his hand, and exclaimed:

"I move that the Honorable John Quincy Adams take the chair of the speaker of this house, and officiate as presiding officer, till the house be organized by the election of its constitutional officers! As many as are agreed to this will say ay; those