THE NEW FEDERALIST May 15, 1995 Pages 6 & 8

American Almanac

How John Quincy Adams Battled Irrational Populism

by Denise M. Henderson

John Quincy Adams Andrew Jackson

On Jan. 10, 1995, Washington, D.C. was treated to the spectacle of the
recently elected "neo-conservative" congressmen marching from the
Heritage Foundation up to Capitol Hill under the leadership of Rush
Limbaugh, the self-proclaimed "Conservative Revolutionary" talk-show
host. The neo-cons' attempt to storm the House of Representatives has been
followed by worse: after the defeat of the Balanced Budget Amendment,
many among the neo-cons moved to oust Mark Hatfield, the GOP Senator
from Oregon, on the grounds that Hatfield's decision to vote against that
amendment "disqualified" him.
But if you think such intimidation tactics have just arrived in Washington
with the election of Newt Gingrich and his bunch, then take another look at
U.S. history. On June 10, 1850, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a Republi-
can from Pennsylvania, called to the Congress's attention the abuse to which
John Quincy Adams, a former U.S. President who had served as a congress-
man from 1831 to 1848, had been subjected: "We saw him, from year to
year, the object of the bitterest personal abuse in this House, and by the slave
press everywhere. No motives were too foul to impute to him: no crimes
too atrocious to charge upon him. It was sought to expel him from this body,
and it was prevented only by his own gallant defense."
From attempts at intimidation on the floor of the House, to assassination
threats, to a constant stream of hate mail; from an attempt to expel Adams
from the House, to being gagged, Adams, who had stood alone on crucial
constitutional issues, had indeed been personally targeted for his stand.
The atmosphere of sectional division which prevailed in the country, pre-
vailed in the House. Along with the hostility to Adams, the years during
which he served saw the highest number of duels fought between congress-
men. One of these duels resulted in the death of Congressman Cilley, which
led to an attempt to outlaw dueling between the nation's legislators. During
the debate, Adams, probably only half-joking, told a colleague that dueling
arose from the same culture that produced slavery.
Just as, today, Newt Gingrich envisions himself as maintaining top-down
control over the way Republicans will vote in the House, and just as he has
demonstrated an intolerance for others' views on the issues, even if others
happen to be speaking from a more informed and rational standpoint than he,
from the 1830s through the secession of the South in 1861, the "South Carol-
ina men" or representatives of the slave power as Adams called them, also
ran roughshod over the U.S. Constitution.
Fortunately, today, there is one crucial difference: President Clinton is not
of the same stripe as the Presidents who ruled between 1829 and 1859.
From Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) to Martin Van Buren (1837 to 1841) to
James Buchanan (1857-1861)—in other words, until the election of Abra-
ham Lincoln, the Presidents of the United States were mostly traitors. Wit-
tingly or not, they were doing the dirty work of the British oligarchy in
trying to destroy the Union and replace it with one or more British-con-
trolled fiefdoms on the territory of the United States.
Traitors in Washington
Adams, who was born in 1767 and who had served under Presidents Wash-
ington, Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison, was acutely aware of this current of
treason. When Van Buren was elected in 1837, he wrote that the U.S. Presi-
dency had become a "joint stock company" of Andrew Jackson and Martin
Van Buren—in other words, of the slave power. Van Buren had been Jack-
son's election manager and his vice president, and had easily slipped into the
Presidential chair— with the help of his British allies in the House and in the
press.
These were the circumstances under which Adams fought for the right to
petition, the right to free speech. On May 2, 1838, Adams reported that he
had been warned that another House member, Colonel Boon from Kentucky,
might physically attack him. Wrote Adams, "May these repeated warnings
at least preserve me from giving any just cause of offense, without deterring
me from any proper exercise of the freedom of speech!" (emph. added). But
clearly, Adams did not consider threats to his physical well-being a reason to
stop his campaign for the right to petition.
Adams had been President from 1824-1828, and prided himself on having
championed internal improvements for the country. He first ran for Con-
gress in 1830, when he became alarmed by Andrew Jackson's 1829 election.
He saw the outlines of the coming crisis around the question of the tariff,
which American patriots favored as a means of developing the United States
into an industrial giant and keeping out the British, who wanted to turn the
U.S.A. into a raw materials colony. But the British and their agents, like the
notorious Englishman Thomas Cooper, the president of South Carolina
College who had been one of the first to call publicly for dis-union of South
Carolina from the United States, were working in concert with a small circle
of South Carolina Masons who also advocated dis-union. Throughout the
Nullification Crisis, as the fight over the tariff came to be called, Adams
wrote in his diary several times that he was concerned that the United States
might be facing a civil war. Much of the debate over the tariff was heated.
At one point, one Southern congressman who opposed secession called his
rabid pro-secessionist colleague "a Robespierre."
Even after the crisis had ended, Adams was not convinced that resolving the
single issue of the tariff would make any difference in relations existing
between North and South, because there was a fundamental difference
between the two over the question of slavery.
The American System of political economy versus the British System: above,
the Morgan Ironworks in a prosperous New York City; below, a slave auction
in the South. Inset: Presidents Van Buren and Buchanan.
 The Second National Bank of the United States, centerpiece of the American
System, which Jackson dismantled.

The 'Will of the People'

When Adams entered the House, Andrew Jackson had been President for
two years, and in that period, had begun to dismantle what Henry Clay in
1824 had called the American System. The American System allowed for
the development of the United States' internal manufacturing, protection
against the destruction of the U.S. economy by foreign interests, and a sys-
tem which encouraged the creation of new industries.
The dismantling process began with the fight over the tariff. What Adams
saw beginning to operate in those years, was the so-called "will of the peo-
ple." It was alleged that the Northern "aristocrats" had been suppressing the
"common man" through the tariff system, and the Bank of the United States,
which was alleged to be the "bank of the wealthy." It was said that "the
people" wanted political power vested in the states, not the centralized
power of the federal government. Adams saw clearly that Andrew Jackson
and his crowd were invoking "the will of the people" as a means of
destroying the American System of political economy, as well as a means of
guaranteeing the ascendancy of the slave power (the Southern states) over
the rest of the country, something they were advantaged to do by the three-
fifths rule: Each slave counted as three-fifths of a person, which meant that
southern states had more representatives in the House than Northern or
Midwest states.
But the pro-Jackson party in the House and Senate were not merely country
hicks who felt it necessary to capitulate to the "the will of the people" on
every issue. Throughout his career, Jackson had worked with the pro-British
traitor Aaron Burr and with Albert Gallatin. On Feb. 24, 1831, Adams re-
corded in his diary that he had been told that the British would have taken
certain measures in their trade policy to ensure Jackson's victory, if they had
been advised to do so.
In 1834, the fight over whether the charter of the Bank of the United States
would be renewed had begun. As part of their ploy to get rid of the Bank
altogether, the "Jackson men" demanded an investigation into the operation
of the bank, including visits to the bank and any of its branches. Adams,
recognizing this as a ploy to put the bank out of operation and put the funds
of the Treasury of the United States into the hands of state and private banks,
wrote in his diary on April 4, 1834 that he was "mortified" by the proposed
investigation. He called it "arbitrary" and "tyrannical," and compared it to
the laws enacted in revolutionary France in the 1790s. "It proves how feeble
even in this country," he wrote, "are all the principles of freedom in collision
with a current of popular prejudices or passion."
Over the years, Adams became a rallying point in the House for constitu-
tional principles. He was also involved in organizing the Anti-Masonic
Party. He looked for ways to build new political parties after the Anti-
Masonic Party and the Whig Party was falling apart. He encouraged Thad-
deus Stevens, the Pennsylvania Whig who fought to defend the American
System of Political Economy and the Union, and looked for other American
patriots who would defend the U.S. Constitution.
Adams regularly had to correct the reports of his remarks and speeches in
the National Intelligencer, the official reporter of the proceedings of the
House. When he was put on trial by the House, the National Intelligencer
garbled his speeches, and then refused to print them on the ground that he
had complained that they were garbled. Had he not been a former President
already in his 70s, and as well known as he was, some hot-tempered South-
ern spokesman of "the people" might have punched him out or shot him,
something that was not unusual in the House of Representatives at this time.
Jackson's presidency was the beginning of the secessionist movement in the
United States. But worse was to come. Although Adams was sometimes
verbally abused and witnessed one physical assault which occurred in the
House during this time, it was nothing compared to what was to follow as
the "slave power" became bolder. As the British-inspired U.S. press in-
flamed the pro-secessionist feelings of Southern congressmen, the incite-
ment to verbal and physical abuse increased. Slave-power congressmen
continued to try to provoke Adams to give them cause to either hurt him or
to expel him.
Adams vs. the Gag Rule
Throughout this period, large numbers of petitions were presented calling for
the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in Washington, D.C. and the
territories, for the prohibition of the internal (or interstate) traffic in slaves,
and against the admission into the Union of any new slave states. Southern
congressmen were outraged. To have legalized slavery in Washington was,
of course, a symbol of the slave power's influence in the nation. And at the
same time Adams was presenting such petitions, a political battle was raging
over whether states about to enter the Union would be slave or free.
It was obvious to all that this was the issue in the mind of Southerners, yet
they denied it. When Adams realized that the slave power was not merely
going to lay the petitions he presented on the table but also gag him—vote
up House rules to prevent him from presenting any anti-slavery petitions—
he was shocked. Shocked not because he was a radical abolitionist; he was
not. Adams was stunned at how readily the slave power was prepared to
throw out a principle written into the U.S. Constitution because they dis-
agreed with the content of what was being said.
A steamroller of petitions against slavery, mostly from the North and from
some Midwest states, began to build. It was too much for the slave power,
which could not take the opposition to their feudal, slave-based system.
But another factor was at work, which was the absolutely principled
character of John Quincy Adams. Like Abraham Lincoln later, he wanted
the Union to survive, but didn't know if it could. At times he was very pes-
simistic about it. But as the opposition to him grew, he became identified in
the minds of voters with the principles on which the United States had been
founded. He came from the Federalist Era, and bridged the generation from
Washington to the founding of the Republican Party, which produced
Abraham Lincoln. Adams's famous speeches during this period would
represent a testament to this tradition; from the North and the Midwest, he
received letters of thanks for the stand he was taking; from the South,
nothing but hate mail and death threats.
As far as the slave power was concerned, Adams had to be silenced. Al-
though they professed to Adams that they were in favor of free speech, it
was also the case that they were more committed to defending slavery. And
if sacrificing free speech was the only way to do it, they would.
And so the rules of the House were changed to accommodate the slave
power: John Quincy Adams was to be gagged. He was ruled out of order
from presenting any petitions whatsoever. A personal hatred against Adams
was whipped up, from the British-inspired press in Washington, New York,
and elsewhere, to the floor of the House itself.
But Adams stood firm against the "gag rule" which had been imposed,
effectively denying U.S. citizens the right to petition. The "gag rule" was
first imposed in 1835 and was not to be lifted until 1845.
Presenting petitions from constituents and other U.S. citizens was a normal
and respected procedure in the House. In the early nineteenth century, a day
used to be set aside for congressmen to do so. So for Adams to present
petitions requesting that Congress abolish slavery in the United States, was a
right of both the citizen and of his congressman. Soon, however, Northern
abolitionists, whose mailings of anti-slavery tracts to the South were being
censored, began to send petitions to the Congress requesting that Congress
abolish slavery in Washington, D.C; more radical abolitionists asked that
Congress take up the issue of abolition of slavery altogether. Because
Adams was from Massachusetts, a bastion of abolitionist activity, he pre-
sented many of these petitions. It was his belief that citizens had a right to
petition their representatives. It was the belief of the slave power repre-
sentatives that citizens had a right to petition for such causes as the annexa-
tion of Texas (which then became a slave state), etc.; as long as their peti-
tions did not "insult" the Southern states, i.e., call for the abolition of slavery
in the capital district or anywhere else.
The demand that opponents of slavery, particularly John Quincy Adams, be
gagged was first made in 1835 by South Carolina Congressman James
Hammond, a student of the rabid Thomas Cooper. Hammond, like Cooper,
was a Mason, and there is no doubt that he spoke on behalf of the coterie of
"South Carolina men" who were some of the chief supporters of the annexa-
tion of Texas to the United States as a slave state, designed to increase the
power of the slaveholding states.
With the annexation issue being pushed by the Jackson administration begin-
ning in 1836, the House was flooded with petitions from citizens and legisla-
tures of the slaveholding Southern states supporting annexation and that
Texas be admitted as a state—a slave state, of course. Thus, the issue of the
expansion of slavery, and with it of the right of Congress to prohibit it in the
territories, erupted with a vengeance. The House was now presented with
not just anti-slavery petitions, but large numbers opposing annexation as
well. In an effort to ram through annexation and silence all opposition, the
House adopted a resolution in 1836, which it would renew in every session
until 1845, "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."
So Adams, now 70 years old, found himself quickly becoming the champion
of the right of U.S. citizens to free speech. The right to petition was firmly
stated in the U.S. Constitution, in the First Amendment. No one, no matter
from what section of the country, had a right to deny that on the grounds that
they didn't like what they were hearing. What resulted was both one of the
most important constitutional battles in this nation's history, and one of the
most articulate and principled defenses of not simply the right of freedom of
speech, but also of the fundamental principles which the Founding Fathers
had intended the nation to stand upon. This can be heard in Adams's famous
speech on the right of the people to petition, actually a series of speeches
delivered on successive days between June 16 and July 17, 1838, resulting
from a parliamentary maneuver which allowed Adams to circumvent an
attempt to silence him altogether.
Attempt to Expel Adams
On Jan. 24, 1842, Adams, still fighting for his right to introduce petitions
from U.S. citizens, asked to be allowed to introduce a petition from 46
citizens of Haverhill, Mass., which called for the immediate dissolution of
the Union, on several grounds, including that "that Union, if persisted in, in
the present course of things, will certainly overwhelm the whole nation in
utter destruction."
Adams himself was not for disunion. As he had emphasized in his role as
chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, and in speeches before the
House, had the system of internal improvements and the program known as
the American System been continued after his presidency, the United States
would never have had the Panic of 1837. It would have continued to de-
velop economically, and economic development was the condition needed
for making the backward South develop; it was the condition needed to end
slavery.
But the representatives of the slave power were up in arms at once,
ostensibly over the idea that a congressman would "propose" the dissolution
of the Union. (All Adams was doing, was asking that a citizens' petition
proposing disunion be studied by the appropriate committee, which would
then recommend what action should be taken.) He was accused of "suborna-
tion of perjury and high treason," and the Southern members, in concert with
Northern Democrats, demanded that Adams be tried, with the intent of ex-
pelling him from the House.
Adams was not merely up against the slave power. Backing up the slave
power which hated Adams so, were Northern congressmen who benefited
from slavery either directly or indirectly. Some were outright traitors;
others ran textile factories in the North, and wanted to keep the price of
Southern cotton low, which was best done through slave labor.
Adams was 75 at the time. He often wrote about his infirmities in his
diaries. But he quickly dismissed them by returning to the necessity that he
continue his fight for the U.S. Constitution in the House. He had been
chairman of the committee on the Smithson bequest, which led to the
founding of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the congressman to whom
those engaged in geographical surveys of the United States, etc., relied on.
For years he had been chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, and was
now chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, from which position
Caleb Cushing (also from Massachusetts), "an arch-Mason" and too much in
favor of the British, as Adams knew, was trying to relieve him. He was also
the only congressman pushing for the United States to support research in
fundamental science, such as astronomy.
But Adams knew that someone had to stand up to the slave power. Someone
had to expose the fact that they were prepared to destroy the American Sys-
tem and hand the United States over to Britain as a ruined colony in order to
preserve the system of slavery which had become entrenched in the South.
As he put it, the liberties of the United States were on trial in his person.
In the speech he gave in his defense, Adams nailed the slave power in
Congress, naming names and identifying the conspiracy against him as a
defender of the U.S. Constitution to such a degree that the slave-power
congressmen decided to drop their trial against him. As part of his defense,
Adams referred to an epigraph he had received, which was an assassination
threat, in January 1842. The epigraph was almost identical to words that had
been spoken directly to him in the House by a congressman, the ringleader
of this expulsion attempt. He also pointed to the "base conspiracy of three
Virginians, banded here, together with numerous accomplices in and out of
the House, for my destruction."
The trial was stopped in mid-course. It had become clear to the slave power
that Adams, ungagged so that he could defend himself, was more effective
against the slave power than if he were still gagged. As part of his defense,
he was even allowed to speak out on the slavery question. Adams's own
evaluation was that the whole thing had been "senseless" on the part of the
conspirators. But, he wrote on Feb. 6, 1842, "One hundred members of the
House represent slaves; four-fifths of whom would crucify me if their votes
could erect the cross; 40 members, representatives of the free, in the league
of slavery and mock Democracy, would break me on the wheel, if their votes
or wishes could turn it round. . . ."
John Quincy Adams collapsed at his desk in the House in February of 1848,
and died several days after. But if the Freemasons and their masters in
London thought that they were rid of one of the thorns in their side, they
were wrong. Two years later, Thaddeus Stevens, with whom Adams had
worked on attempting to create the Anti-Mason Party, was elected to the
Congress from Pennsylvania. He immediately took up the fight for the
Union and the American System. During the Civil War he became one of
President Lincoln's staunchest allies; and during Reconstruction, he fought
the hardest to extend the American System to the South.
The Guillotine or Development?
Today, the world is on the verge of a global financial crisis which will have
grave consequences, especially if populists, in the name of "the will of the
people," succeed in pulling off their "quick fixes" like throwing the poor off
the welfare rolls as the economy sinks even further, or building concentra-
tion-camp-type slave labor for prisoners instead of focusing on how to rid
the U.S. and the world of the financial and monetary power embedded in
Wall Street, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the oligarchical Club of the Isles.
It is up to the American citizen to decide: Are you going to follow some
slick new Robespierre like Phil Gramm or Newt Gingrich, who will lead you
to the guillotine, or are you going to listen to the voices of those who are
fighting for a reasoned solution to the tragedy unfolding in the world today?

Wild Times in the U.S. Congress

In 1838, when the fever over the annexation of Texas was at its height,
Adams was almost attacked by Congressman Boon from Indiana. Adams
was trying to re-open a debate that had begun on reconsideration of receiv-
ing petitions and memorials. But the "administration men" (Van Buren was
President) managed to evade the issue. Adams wrote in his diary: ''Boon
impertinently intruded upon the debate, and I got a general laugh of the
House upon him by saying that they surely could not understand me as
referring to him, fair, candid, and impartial, as they had daily opportunities
of observing him to be, when I charged this proceeding with the reverse of
all these qualities.
"Upon the laugh, Boon turned pale as a ghost, came round opposite where I
was speaking, stared me in the face while I was speaking, as if he thought he
could browbeat me. I looked him occasionally in the face with cool indiffer-
ence, and went on."
That night, as Adams was leaving the Capitol, a man who said he was an old
acquaintance and who roomed at the same boarding-house as Congressman
Boon, "said he had something confidential to say to me, and took me aside,
and, with a solemn look, advised me to be upon my guard, for that Colonel
Boon . . . was a high-tempered and violent man, and might, perhaps, attack
me personally. . . .
"I simply answered that I was obliged to him, and that it was well. I have
had many such notices, which I have always despised. May these repeated
warnings at least preserve me from giving any just cause for offense, without
deterring me from any proper exercise of the freedom of speech!"
Guns and Fists
On Dec. 24, 1833, Adams wrote, "I met a man in the street who accosted me
and said there had been a battle; that General James Blair, a member of the
House of Representatives, had knocked down and very severely beaten Duff
Green, editor of the Telegraph and printer to Congress. What changes in the
affairs and passions of men!" The Telegraph, said Adams, "has lately had
some violent publications against the Union men in South Carolina, of
whom Blair is one. To make them odious, it designates them as Tories—a
name of special abhorrence there, from remembrances of the Revolution.
This was the immediate provocation to Blair, who is of the race of giants—a
man of fifteen stone, and who has nearly killed Green."
Several months later, Blair, who according to Adams was an opium addict,
committed suicide. Noted Adams, "He had within the last ten days given the
lie to Henry L. Pinckney while speaking in his place in the House of Repre-
sentatives; and he was in the constant habit of bringing a loaded pistol with
him to the House. The chances were quite equal that he should have shot
almost any other man than himself."
On June 1, 1838, during the 25th Congress, a fistfight broke out between
Congressman Turney and Congressman Bell. Turney had given a long,
insulting speech about Bell, full of personal invective, according to Adams.
Bell did not return insult for insult but instead said that "Turney could have
no possible motive for ill will towards him, but that he had made himself the
voluntary scavenger of all the filth raked up by others; that the political
associates for whom he acted (meaning Polk, the Speaker, and Grundy, the
Senator from Tennessee), whether in or out of the House, were men equally
destitute of public principle and private worth. He had said all this of them
at home in his own district, where he had dared them to meet him, and had
exposed their falsehood and hypocrisy; that they never had dared to meet
him, but had set Turney to make this unprovoked attack upon him in the
House; that Turney had thus become the voluntary instrument of the malice
of others—the tool of tools.
"At these words." writes Adams, "Turney, who was sitting within arm's reach
of Bell, started up, and, with furious gesture, looking him in the face, cried,
'It is false! It is false!'
"Upon which Bell struck him with his fist. Turney aimed a blow at Bell in
return, and they were rushing at each other, when the members adjoining
separated them. . . ."
On Sept. 9, 1841, another incident followed when Congressman Stanly
insulted Congressman Henry A. Wise, a leading pro-British congressman
from Virginia. Wise, says Adams, hectored and insulted Stanly, "whereupon
Stanly called him a liar. Wise struck, or attempted to strike, him, and a fight
ensured; a rush of members to the spot, whether to separate the combatants
or to take sides with them it was difficult to say."
On Jan. 28, 1842, the slave power began their prosecution of Adams in an
attempt to expel him from the House. Congressman Marshall spoke first,
giving "a violent, declamatory, and most eloquent philippic of nearly two
hours" against Adams.
"I interrupted him occasionally, to rectify gross misrepresentations of facts,
and sometimes to provoke him into absurdity; as, for example, at one part of
his speech, that the Northern abolitionists knew nothing about the condition
of the slaves, he assumed a courteous tone, and invited me to visit the West-
ern country. 'To be lynched,' said L 'Very likely,' said he' and proceeded."
On Feb. 3, 1842, Adams was defending himself against the expulsion
attempt, and included as part of his evidence an "anonymous letter from
Jackson, North Carolina, 20th January, 1842, threatening me with assassina-
tion, and the engraved portrait of me with the mark of a rifle-ball on the
forehead, with the motto, to stop the music of John Quincy Adams, sixth
President of the United States."
 John Quincy Adams, American Patriot

Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress

The young John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was born in 1767 and in his youth had the opportunity
to meet and talk to Benjamin Franklin. He studied Plato throughout his life.
He also studied astronomy, and was a champion of the fundamental sciences.
As chairman of the committee on the Smithson bequest, which resulted in
the creation of the Smithsonian Institution, he sought to make the bequest a
living donation, not simply a museum of scientific achievements. He kept
looking for ways the bequest could be used to support ongoing work in var-
ious fields of science.
In the 1830s and 1840s, "congressional aides" were unheard of, and Adams
often sorted the petitions he received—sometimes almost 50 a day—himself.
Rather than relying on aides to brief him on upcoming bills, he not only read
the bills himself, but often relied on the Library of Congress to provide him
with the history behind a particular bill. But Adams's idea of history meant
reviewing sources like Solon of Athens on the debt question and Jonathan
Swift on the powers of the executive.
On one occasion, during the Panic of 1837, Adams wondered if there was a
way to bring the United States out of debt. To review the subject, he looked
up the history of how Solon of Athens had treated the debt question in that
city-state in ancient times. Solon, known as the law-giver of Athens, had
ordered all debts to be forgiven. He outlawed the practice of citizens selling
either themselves or other members of their family into slavery to pay their
debts. Solon established a legal system in Athens which allowed its citi-
zenry to develop their economy. The result was a society which flourished
not only economically, but which created individuals like Socrates and Plato.
Adams Studies Swift
When a question about the powers of the executive arose, Adams remem-
bered a citation in Jonathan Swift on executive a,nd went to the Library of
Congress. He couldn't find the passage in Swift, but this led him to Thomas
Hobbes's Leviathan. Hobbes was one of the British empiricists who claimed
that "morality" was whatever gave a person pleasure, and immorality was
that which gave a person pain. Adams could only say that Leviathan was
"exceedingly obnoxious—more, however, for its anti-religious than for its
monarchical principles. . . . It seems to me there is nothing in the book
worth retaining."
This was the difference between advocates of the American System and
British empiricists.
Adams was also an advocate of government support for the sciences as the
most efficient means of developing the nation. In 1843, he went to Cincin-
nati to speak at the opening ceremony of an observatory which the people of
the city had paid for. On Nov. 24, 1843, Adams wrote in his diary that "The
people of this country do not sufficiently estimate the importance of patron-
izing and promoting science as a principle of political action; and the slave
oligarchy systematically struggles to suppress all public patronage or
countenance to the progress of the mind."
Such were some of the ideas of the man who the slave power attempted to
gag and then expel from the United States Congress.