MARTIN VAN BUREN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE CLAIMS OF THE DEPOSIT BANKS.--HIS LETTER ON BOOKS FOR UNIVERSAL READING.--ORATION AT NEWBURYPORT.--SPEECH ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION.-- LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--ADDRESS TO THE INHABITANTS OF HIS DISTRICT.--HIS VIEWS AS TO THE APPLICATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS INTEREST IN THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE ON AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY.--LETTER ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--RESOLUTIONS FOR THE LIMITING OF HEREDITARY SLAVERY.--DISCOURSE BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.--ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.--REMARKS ON PHRENOLOGY.--ON THE LICENSE LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS.--HE ORGANIZES THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. On the 4th of March, 1837, Martin Van Buren succeeded to the Presidency of the United States. The undeviating zeal with which he had supported all the plans of Andrew Jackson, especially those for dismembering Mexico and annexing Texas to the Union as a slave state, had proved, to the satisfaction of the slaveholders, that reliance might be placed on a Northern man to carry into effect Southern policy. On the 14th of October ensuing Mr. Adams delivered a speech, in the House of Representatives, on a bill for "adjusting the remaining claims upon the late deposit banks." When this bill was in discussion in a committee of the whole house, Mr. Adams asked the author of it (Mr. Cambreling, of New York) to what banks certain words, which he stated, were intended to apply. Cambreling replied that Mr. Adams could answer his own interrogatory by reading the bill himself. Mr. Adams then proceeded to state several other objections to the terms of the bill, and confessed that his faculties of comprehension did not permit him to understand its phraseology. Mr. Cambreling rose quickly, and remarked that, at so late a period of the session, the last working night, he could not waste his time in discussing nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs, with the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Adams replied: "Well, sir, as language is composed of nouns and pronouns, verbs and adverbs, when they are put together to constitute the law of the land the _meaning_ of them may surely be demanded of the legislator, and those parts of speech may well be used for such a purpose. But, if such explanation be impossible, it certainly ought not to be expected that this house will consent to pass a law, composed of nouns and pronouns, verbs and adverbs, which the author of it himself does not understand."[1] [1] _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. III., pp. 167, 168.