Randolph of Roanoke submitted a resolution to the House of Congress proposing the devising of means to rid the District of Columbia of what he called the "nefarious traffic" in slaves; saying at the same time that "not even upon the rivers upon the African coast is there so great and nefarious a slave-market as in this metropolis, the very seat of government of this Nation, which prides itself on freedom." A few years later such language coming from a Northern man would have raised a mob spirit in the Halls of Congress, as it actually did.

But the most remarkable freaks in the whole history of the slavery controversy, perhaps, are to be found in the debates of the Virginia State Constitutional Convention of 1831, on the subject of emancipation.

Mr. Moore said slavery was a nuisance in the State, and Mr. Broadnax called it the "greatest curse that God in his wrath ever inflicted upon a people," and asked if there was a man in the State who did not lament that there was a slave in it.

Mr. Chandler said slavery was the greatest curse ever inflicted upon the State. Mr. Moore said the State ought to be freed from this curse. Mr. Bolling called it "a great and appalling evil," and said its friends were "drunk with prejudice." Mr. Faulkner said slavery was an evil and pressed heavily on the best interests of the country.

Among the other members of the convention who then favored emancipation in Virginia were Marshall, Preston, and Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson. The latter proposed to the convention a plan of State emancipation which should

be initiated in 1840. This was one of the most able bodies of men ever assembled in Virginia, and although it accomplished absolutely nothing toward freeing the State from the incubus of slavery, it taught the world a lesson as to the character of the "nefarious institution" from which it received no little profit. An assemblage of Virginians, orators and politicians, every one of them, by birth and habits of life, in 1831, teaching the world the horrors and evils of slavery, was an interesting spectacle, not without its moral in the future aspects of the conflict.

No Abolitionist had ever said more, or ever afterwards spoke more radical and violent sentiments against slavery than did many of these gallant men, most of whom in after times found it necessary to abandon the noble position they then took, and fall into the new and peculiar current of Southern civilization, a way which, it was claimed, led, through the means of slavery, to the highest and best attainable states of human culture and refinement.

The Abolitionists had long abandoned all hope of gaining successfully a hearing in Congress, the most considerate and responsible of them, indeed, believing that Congress had no power to interfere in any way with the "institution" outside of the District of Columbia. What they could not accomplish by legislation they hoped to reach by moral force, and to that end they turned their attention.

Abolition societies were organized throughout the North, and a national association in 1834. Newspapers, pamphlets, and books flooded the land, assailing slavery on every imaginable ground. So widely were these spread over the South that President

Jackson felt called upon to interfere, and, in one of his messages, notified Congress of the dangerous agitation in that section from this source. In the North matters were not better. Even in New England every bold man who raised his voice against slavery was in danger of the mob. Pro-slavery riots, it was held, would teach the South that the great body of the Northern people had no fanatical, foolish, or wrong notions on this momentous theme, one which did not belong to them at all. In this wretched condition of affairs no public man could stand aloof. Events were approaching a climax more rapidly than the wisest could fathom. And here it was that Mr. Adams was borne into the conflict he would have been glad to avoid.

The opponents of slavery were now exceedingly active, and their petitions, almost numberless, allowed little rest to their friends and the wary political trimmers in Congress. As before indicated, Mr. Adams was not a favorite with the Abolitionists, and Mr. Garrison and others severely and directly criticised his course. Still his position as to the right of petition made him, to a great extent, the instrument of these men in Congress. Nor, indeed, had they any ground on which to fight against his real sentiments towards the "institution" of slavery. In 1835 he wrote:

"There is something extraordinary in the present condition of parties throughout the Union. Slavery and democracy, especially a democracy founded as ours is, on the rights of man, would seem to be incompatible with each other; and yet, at this time, the Democracy of the country is supported chiefly, if not entirely, by slavery. There is a small, enthusiastic party preaching the abolition of slavery upon the principles of extreme democracy. But the Democratic spirit and the popular feeling are everywhere against them."

Mr. Adams was not influenced in his course either by the opinions of the Abolitionists or their fiery opponents at the South. And events were transpiring

which were destined to draw towards him the unwilling admiration of one of these classes, and the increased hatred and curses of the other. Although at this period Joshua R. Giddings and Thomas Morris, of Ohio, and a score of other able, persevering, uncompromising Abolitionists from different States, had seats in Congress, and lost few opportunities of exhibiting the fact that they were such, they lacked the political importance which the friends and enemies of slavery attached to Mr. Adams. They did not, however, escape all the ill-usage, contempt, and hatred the supporters of the "institution" thought they merited. Nor were they behind their Southern "admirers." Hard epithets came from them with the virtue of being applied to an evil cause, notwithstanding the taint which, to a great extent, hung around the Abolitionist, in the popular mind, and which even yet attaches to the memory of the old Abolitionists, although slavery has long been extinct, and the blessings of freedom universally acknowledged.

Early in 1836 a Northern man presented a resolution in the House declaring that Congress should entertain no propositions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and should lay all petitions on that subject on the table, unreferred and unprinted. But even this proposition was not acceptable to the South, and the whole matter went into the hands of a committee of four Northern and four Southern men, all of one political coat, and one of whom was Franklin Pierce, afterwards President; and

about the middle of May they made a unanimous report, in which was this proposition

"Resolved, That Congress possesses no Constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the States of the Confederacy.

"Resolved, That Congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in the District of Columbia.

"And, WHEREAS, It is extremely important and desirable that the agitation of this subject should be finally arrested for the purpose of restoring tranquillity to the public mind, your committee respectfully recommend the adoption of the following additional resolution, viz:

"Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."

But even this was not satisfactory to many extreme men of the South, and a hot debate was elicited by the resolutions. The first of these resolutions Mr. Adams said he would, in five minutes, prove to be false, if he were allowed that time, but this privilege was not granted to him. Against the principle announced in the third resolution he had already gained a widespread reputation, and now, amidst the great excitement of the moment, he declared the proposition to be contrary to the Constitution and the rights of the people, and sent to the Speaker's Chair, to be recorded. in the Journal of the House for the use of posterity, he said, the following announcement :

"I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, of the rules of this House, and of the rights of my constituents."

But this obnoxious gag was passed by a vote of 117 to 68, nearly all the members voting against it