Part 12 (1/2)
for women to take any interest or any part in political affairs? In the history of Greece, let him read and examine the character of Aspasia, in a country in which the character and conduct of wo the Turks Has he forgotten that Spartanout to battle, 'My son, come back to me _with_ thy shi+eld, or _upon_ thy shi+eld'? Does he not remember Cloelia and her hundred companions, a frootten Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who declared that her children were her jewels? And why? Because they were the champions of freedohter of Cato, and in what terms she is represented in the history of Rome? Has he not read of Arria, who, under imperial despotised the sword into her own boso it to her husband, said, 'Take it, Paetus, it does not hurt,' and expired?
”To colo-Saxon ancestors? To say nothing of Boadicea, the British heroine in the time of the Caesars, what name is more illustrious than that of Elizabeth?
Or, if he will go to the Continent, will he not find the naary, the two Catharines of Russia, and of Isabella of Castile, the patroness of Columbus, the discoverer in substance of this hemisphere, for without her that discovery would not have beenin politics? To come nearer hole of the Revolution? Or ould the men have been but for the influence of the women of that day? Were they devoted _exclusively_ to the duties and enjoyments of the fireside? Take, for example, the ladies of Philadelphia”
Mr Adae Johnson's life of General Greene, relating that during the Revolutionary War a call ca that the troops were destitute of shi+rts, and of”And froe Johnson, ”did relief arrive, at last? From the heart where patriotism erects her favorite shrine, and from the hand which is seldom withdrahen the soldier solicits The ladies of Philadelphia ienerous work, and it was a work too grateful to the American fair not to be followed up with zeal and alacrity”
Mr Ada quotation from Dr Ramsay's history of South Carolina, ”which speaks,” said he, ”tru and intrepid spirit of patriotis in the boso an extract from this history, Mr Ada into the vortex of politics!'--glorying in being called rebel ladies; refusing to attend balls and entertain to the prison-shi+ps! Mark this, and reer to their own persons, and to the safety of their families But it manifested the spirit by which they were anied here, in this hall where we are sitting, as being 'discreditable' to our country's name? Shall it be said that such conduct was a national reproach, because it was the conduct of women who left 'their domestic concerns, and rushed into the vortex of politics'? Sir, these women did more; they _petitioned_--yes, they petitioned--and that in a matter of politics It was for the _life of Hayne_”
In connection with this eloquent defence of the right of women to interfere in politics, of which the above extracts are but an outline, Mr Adams thus applies the result to the particular subject of controversy:
”The broad principle is _, vicious_, and the very reverse of that which ought to prevail Why does it follow that wo but the cares of do the food of a fa all their ti the immediate personal comfort of their husbands, brothers, and sons? Observe, sir, the point of departure between the chairman of the committee and s I subscribe fully to the elegant compliment passed by him upon those members of the female sex who devote their time to these duties But I say that the correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God The mere departure of wo a reproach to her, is a virtue of the highest order, when it is done from purity of motive, by appropriate means, and towards a virtuous purpose There is the true distinction The ood; and I say that woe of such duties, has manifested a virtue which is even above the virtues of mankind, and approaches to a superior nature That is the principle I maintain, and which the chairman of the committee has to refute, if he applies the position he has taken to the hters, of the men of my district who voted to send me here Now, I aver further, that, in the instance to which his observation refers, naainst the annexation of Texas to this Union, the motive was pure, the hest degree As an evident proof of this, I recur to the particular petition from which this debate took its rise, naainst the annexation--a petition consisting of three lines, and signed by two hundred and thirty-eight women of Plymouth, a principal town in ned, wohly aware of the sinfulness of slavery, and the consequent impolicy and disastrous tendency of its extension in our country, do ainst the annexation of Texas to the United States as a slaveholding territory'
”These are the words of theirit here, their hest order of purity They petitioned under a conviction that the consequence of the annexation would be the advanceht of God, namely, slavery I say, further, that the ress who must decide on the question; and therefore it is proper that they should petition Congress, if they wish to prevent the annexation And I say, in the third place, that the end was virtuous, pure, and of the most exalted character, nahout America I say, moreover, that I subscribe, in my own person, to every word the petition contains I do believe slavery to be a sin before God; and that is the reason, and the only insurmountable reason, e should refuse to annex Texas to this Union”
On the 28th July, 1838, to an invitation from the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to attend their celebration of the anniversary of the day upon which slavery was abolished in the colonial possessions of Great Britain, Mr Adaive me pleasure to comply with this invitation; but my health is not very firm My voice has been affected by the intense heat of the season; and a multiplicity of applications, from societies political and literary, to attend and address theirthe privilege ofthem all
”I rejoice that the defence of the cause of huorous hands That, in three-score years from the day of the Declaration of Independence, its self-evident truths should be yet struggling for existence against the degeneracy of an age pa into servitude, is a melancholy truth, from which I should in vain atteone forth The youthful chahts of hu on their ar lawyer, and the servile sophist, and the faithless scribe, and the priestly parasite, will vanish before them like Satan touched by the spear of Ithuriel I live in the faith and hope of the progressive advancement of Christian liberty, and expect to abide by the sah arduous career before you; and it is a the consolations of my last days that I am able to cheer you in the pursuit, and exhort you to be steadfast and immovable in it So shall you not fail, whateverof hiust, 1838, Mr Adams addressed a letter to the inhabitants of his district, in which, after stating what had been done on the saislature of Massachusetts and other states, he proceeded to recapitulate the wrongs which had been done to the colored races of Africa on this continent, ”which have indeed been of long standing, but which in these latter days have been aggravated beyond all measure To repair the injustice of our fathers to these races had been, from the day of the Declaration of Independence, the conscience of the good and the counsel of the wise rulers of the land
Washi+ngton, by his own example in the testamentary disposal of his property,--Jefferson, by the unhesitating convictions of his own ument and eloquent persuasion, addressed al life, to the reason and feelings of his countrye to the self-evident principles which the nation, at her birth, had been the first to proclaim Emancipation, universal eed on their contemporaries, and held forth as transcendent and irree Instead of which, what have we seen? Co at defiance the laws of nature and nature's God, restoring slavery where it had been extinguished, and vainly drea, in the sacred na to the legislative authority itself thatliberty to the slave! Governors of states urging upon their Legislatures to ate the right of the slave to freedoospel, like the priest in the parable of the Good Sahway robber, and passing on the other side; or, baser still, perverting the pages of the sacred volume to turn into a code of slavery the very word of God! Philosophers, like the Sophists of ancient Greece, pulverized by the sober sense of Socrates, elaborating theories of _ar plantation, and vaporing about lofty sentienerous benevolence to be learnt froe ofthe peacefulthe light of a printing-press, and burning with unhallowed fire the hall of freedom, the orphan's school, and the church devoted to the worshi+p of God! And, last of all, both houses of Congress turning a deaf ear to hundreds of thousands of petitioners, and quibbling away their duty to read, to listen, and consider, in doubtful disputations whether they shall receive, or, receiving, refuse to read or hear, the complaints and prayers of their fellow-citizens and fellow-men!”
Mr Adams proceeds, in a like spirit of eloquent plainness, to denounce the violation of that beneficent change which both Washi+ngton and Jefferson had devised for the red man of the forest, and had assured to hi the faith of the nation, and by laws interdicting by severe penalties the intrusion of the white man on his domain ”In contempt of those treaties,” said he, ”and in defiance of those laws, the sovereign State of Georgia had extended her jurisdiction over these Indian lands, and lavished, in lottery-tickets to her people, the growing harvests, the cultivated fields, and furnished dwellings, of the Cherokee, setting at naught the solemn adjudication of the Supre this licensed robbery alike lawless and unconstitutional” He then proceeds, in a strain of severe animadversion, to reprobate the conduct of the Executive adia;” and reviews that of Congress, in refusing ”the petitions of fifteen thousand of these cheated and plundered people,” when thousands of our own citizens joined in their supplications
In this letter Mr Adain of the treaty of peace and alliance between Southern nullification and Northern pro-slavery, and the nature and consequences of that alliance In the course of his illustrations on this subject he repels, with an irresistible power of argument, the atte the freemen of the North ”The condition of master and slave is,” he considered, ”by the laws of nature and of God, a state of perpetual, inextinguishable war The slaveholder, deeply conscious of this, soothes his soul by sophistical reasonings into a belief that this same war still exists in free communities between the capitalist and free labor” The fallacy and falsehood of this theory he analyzes and exposes, and proceeds to state and reason upon various reat length, and with laborious elucidation[4]
[4] For this letter see _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol V, p 55
On the 27th of October, 1838, Mr Adaress, in which he touched on those points of national policy whichht, which subsequent events have confir for nearly three years, in legislative halls, the right of petition and freedom of debate,” to the influence of slavery, ”which shrinks, and will shrink, from the eye of day Northern subserviency to Southern dictation is the price paid by a Northern administration for Southern support The people of the North still support by their suffrages the men who have truckled to Southern domination I believe it impossible that this total subversion of every principle of liberty should be er submitted to by the people of the free states of this Union But their fate is in their own hands If they choose to be represented by slaves, they will find servility enough to represent and betray theht of petition, the suppression of the freedom of debate, the thirst for the annexation of Texas, the hoop of two successive Presidents against Mexico, are all but varied symptoms of a deadly disease seated in the marrow of our bones, and that deadly disease is slavery”
When, in the latter part of June, 1838, news of the success of Mr Rush in obtaining the Smithsonian bequest, and information that he had already received on account of it more than half a million of dollars, were announced to the public, Mr Adaht direction to the government on the subject He immediately waited upon the President of the United States, and, in a conversation of two hours, explained the views he entertained in regard to the application of that fund, and entreated hiress, for the foundation of the institution, at the coested to him,” said Mr Adams, ”the establishment of an Astronomical Observatory, with a salary for an astronohtly observations and periodical publications; annual courses of lectures upon the natural, , no sinecure, no ed the deep responsibility of the nation to the world and to all posterity worthily to fulfil the great object of the testator I only lamented my inability to communicate half the solicitude hich ishness hich I failed properly to pursue it” ”Mr Van Buren,” Mr Adams added, ”received all this with complacency and apparent concurrence of opinion, seeht, and asked ht be usefully consulted”
The phenomena of the heavens were constantly observed and often recorded by Mr Adams Thus, on the 3d of October, 1838, he writes: ”As the clock struck five this , I saw the planets Venus and Mercury in conjunction, Mercury being about two thirds of a sun's disk below and northward of Venus Three quarters of an hour later Mercury was barely perceptible, and fivefor ten er visible I ascertained, therefore, that, in the clear sky of this latitude, Mercury, at his greatest elongation from the sun,twilight, for the space of one hour I observed, also, the rapidity of his movements, by the diminished distance between these planets since the day before yesterday”
In the following Noveain writes: ”To make observations on the reat portion ofwonder, and of reverence for the great Creator and Mover of these innu of awful enjoy of the sun That flashi+ng bea of the last ray beneath it; that perpetual revolution of the Great and Little Bear around the pole; that rising of the whole constellation of Orion from the horizon to the perpendicular position, and his ride through the heavens with his belt, his nebulous sword, and his four corner stars of the first ht which never tire Even the optical delusion, by which the motion of the earth from west to east appears to the eye as the movement of the whole firnificence to the incomprehensible infinite”
When one of his friends expressed a hope that we should hereafter know more of the brilliant stars around us, Mr Adams replied: ”I trust so I cannot conceive of a world where the stars are not visible, and, if there is one, I trust I shall never be sent to it Nothing conveys to rand spectacle of the heavens in a clear night”
To a letter addressed to him by the Secretary of State, by direction of the President, requesting him to communicate the result of his reflections on the S reply:
”QUINCY, _October 11, 1838_
”SIR: I have reserved for a separate letter what I proposed to say in reco the erection and establishton, as one and the first application of the annual income from the Smithsonian bequest, because that, of all that I have to say, I dee for many years believed that the national character of our country demanded of us the establishment of such an institution as a debt of honor to the cause of science and to the world of civilizedhope this opportunity of rereatest obstacle which has hitherto disappointed the earnest wishes that I have entertained of witnessing, before my own departure for another world, now near at hand, the disappearance of a stain upon our good na and diffusing knowledge a men, by a systematic and scientific continued series of observations on the phenomena of the numberless worlds suspended over our heads--the sublimest of physical sciences, and that in which the field of future discovery is as unbounded as the universe itself I allude to the continued and necessary _expense_ of such an establishment
”In my former letter I proposed that, to preserve entire and unimpaired the Smithsonian fund, as the principal of a perpetual annuity, the annual appropriations from its proceeds should be strictly confined to its annual inco the amount of the fund to be five hundred thousand dollars, it should be so invested as to secure a permanent yearly income of thirty thousand; and that it should be committed to an incorporated board of trustees, with a secretary and treasurer, the only person of the board to receive a pecuniary compensation from the fund”