CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT IN CONGRESS. "They are slaves who dare not be As when, before a violent thunderstorm, low rumbling sounds are heard from time to time below the horizon, announcing its coming; so before the great anti-slavery fight in Congress there were occasional indications from time to time of the approaching tempest. Such were the debates in 1797, in which one very brave and loyal man, who is not much remembered I fear, took a distinguished part. This was George Thacher, a member of Congress from Massachusetts. Through many years, all the time that he was in Congress, he opposed openly and decidedly, with all his heart and soul, the aggressions of the slave-power. Such were the conflicts also in which Josiah Quincy took a prominent part. He was one of the very first to foresee the struggle which freedom and the North would be obliged to wage with the slave-power of the South. To the end of his ex treme old age, as long as he lived, he was faithful to the cause of freedom. I have a note from him, written only a month or two before his death, with which he sent me his check in behalf of some effort for the benefit of the colored people. Such also was the contest which ended with the Missouri compromise in 1820, and the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union as a slave state. In all these battles the slave-power won the victory by its strength of will, its vehement threats and its compact unity of purpose. The word "slave-power" was first used by John Gorham Palfrey, who characterized by this very appropriate name that vast political force united and made compact by slavery. Occasionally, however, the Southern fire-eaters would meet with stern resistance from Northern men. So the sea on our coast, with its stormy waves, beats against the old granite rocks of the shore of New England. Such firm opposition they met in Josiah Quincy, and I think they liked him the better for it. Another Northern man who never feared to encounter them, was Tristram Burges, of Rhode Island. He was full of humor and full of pluck. Many stories are told of his retorts when he was in conflict with Southern men during the years from 1825 to 1835. Passing by these preliminary skirmishes between slavery and freedom, we come down to 1835, when the real battle commenced on the floor of Congress, which ended in the secession of the Southern members. The question found its way into the debates of Congress in the form of petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. If the slaveholders had allowed these petitions to be received and referred, taking no notice of them, it seems probable that no important results would have followed. But, blinded by rage and fear, they opposed their reception, thus denying a privilege belonging to all mankind, that of asking the government to redress their grievances. Then came to the front a man already eminent by his descent, his great attainments, his long public service, his great position, and his commanding ability. John Quincy Adams, after having been President of the United States, accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and was one of the most laborious and useful of its members. He was not then an Abolitionist, nor in favor even of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. But he believed that the people had the right to petition the government for anything they desired, and that their respectful petitions should be respectfully received. Sixty-five years old in 1832, when he began this conflict, his warfare with the slave-power ended only when, struck with death while in his seat, he "saw the last of earth and was content." With what energy, what dauntless courage, what untiring industry, what matchless powers of argument, what inexhaustible resources of knowledge, he pursued his object, the future historian of the struggle will take pleasure in describing. At first there were only two or three Northern men who stood against the slave-power. John Quincy Adams was for many years almost alone in the House of Representatives, and John P. Hale, for some years was alone in the Senate. The character and career of John Quincy Adams are both equally remarkable. He had immense ability, perfect integrity, and a spotless reputation. There was no better illustration of his character than those famous lines of Horace about the just man, who is tenacious of his purpose, and able to hold himself equally against the stormy mob and the imperious tyrant. He had vast industry, a great store of knowledge, a keen and penetrating insight into men and things. He was respected, but not much liked. He possessed little power of entering into sympathetic relations with others. I suppose that he was one of the most lonely men of his time. His was a temper easily roused to anger; and he was full of dislikes and distastes. There was no more dangerous antagonist than this man, in whom the rage for battle was ready to kindle at once into an inextinguishable fire. I recollect that I was once sitting in the parlor of the Louisville Hotel, in Kentucky, somewhere about 1835 or 1836, when I heard a conversation about John Quincy Adams between two Southern statesmen, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, and Gov. Poindexter, of Missouri. They talked about various subjects, and among the rest about Adams. One of them said, "Our Southern friends in the House find it impossible to do anything with that old man. They cannot contrive any way by which to put him down. If they wish to get any measure through, which he will be likely to oppose, they try to find a time to do it when he is not there; but there is no such time, because he is always in his place. There is no use in questioning his facts, because he is always right. His memory never fails him. He is a very difficult man to argue with, because he always grows keener and sharper with every attack. At one time they thought it would be a good plan to neglect him, to talk with each other, and pay no attention while he was speaking; but the truth is, he is so infinitely interesting, that it is impossible not to listen to him whenever he begins to speak-and every one crowds closer to his chair so as not to lose a word." Adams was born in 1767; the son of a president, and a president himself, he passed through every scene of public life before he entered into the last, which was the most important of all. When he was eleven years old he went with his father to Paris. He began his diary in 1779, at the age of twelve, and ended it in 1848, just before his death, at the age of 81. In 1794 he was |