Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.Quincy, Josiah
History
Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.
Quincy, Josiah
Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848
Seminoles, the Creeks, of the Cherokees and the Choctaws, and of how
many other tribes I cannot now stop to enumerate. In the process of
this violent and heartless operation you have met with all the
resistance which men in so helpless a condition as that of the Indian
tribes can make.
"Of the _immediate_ causes of the war we are not yet fully informed;
but I fear you will find them, like the remoter causes, all attributable
to yourselves.
"It is in the last agonies of a people forcibly torn and driven from the
soil which they had inherited from their fathers, and which your own
example, and exhortations, and instructions, and treaties, had riveted
more closely to their hearts--it is in the last convulsive struggles of
their despair, that this war has originated; and, if it bring some
portion of the retributive justice of Heaven upon our own people, it is
our melancholy duty to mitigate, as far as the public resources of the
national treasury will permit, the distresses of our own kindred and
blood, suffering under the necessary consequences of our own wrong. I
shall vote for the resolution."
This speech, perhaps one of the most suggestive and prophetic ever made,
appears in none of the newspapers of the time, and was published by Mr.
Adams from his own minutes and recollections.
In September, 1836, Mr. Adams, at the request of the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Common Council of the city of Boston, delivered a eulogy on the life
and character of James Madison.
On the 7th of January, 1837, Mr. Adams offered to present the petition
of one hundred and fifty women for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, objected to its
reception. Mr. Adams said that the proposition not to receive a petition
was directly in the face of the constitution. He hoped the people of
this country would be spared the mortification, the injustice, and the
wrong, of a decision that such petitions should not be received. It was
indeed true that all discussion, all freedom of speech, all freedom of
the press, on this subject, had been, within the last twelve months,
violently assailed in every form in which the liberties of the people
could be attacked. He considered these attacks as outrages on the
constitution of the country, and the freedom of the people, as far as
they went. But the proposition that such petitions should not be
received went one step further. He hoped it would not obtain the
sanction of the house, which could always reject such petitions after
they had been considered. Among the outrages inflicted on that portion
of the people of this country whose aspirations were raised to the
greatest improvement that could possibly be effected in the condition of
the human race,--the total abolition of slavery on earth,--that of
calumny was the most glaring. Their petitions were treated with
contempt, and the petitioners themselves loaded with foul and infamous
imputations, poured forth on a class of citizens as pure and virtuous as
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account