“Then uprose that bald, gray old
man of seventy-five, his hands tremulous with constitutional
infirmity and age, upon whose consecrated head the
vials of tyrannic wrath had been outpoured. Unexcited
he raised his voice, high-keyed, as was usual with
him, but clear, untremulous, and firm. Almost
in a moment his infirmities disappeared, although
his shaking hand could not but be noted, trembling,
not with fear, but with age.”
His speech was absolutely crushing. He met every
point that had been urged against him and triumphantly
refuted it. He handled his oratorical antagonists
with merciless severity, depicting certain events
in their lives with such vividness that the onlookers
gazed upon them with visible and unmistakable pity.
Said one of these men when he afterwards understood
that a certain party was about to engage in a controversial
debate with Mr. Adams, “Then may the Lord have
mercy on him.”
Mr. Adams was not expelled. His opponents frankly
admitted their discomfiture and dropped the whole
business.
It cannot be denied that John Quincy Adams, almost
by his unaided efforts, preserved and sustained the
life of the Anti-Slavery cause at a time when it was
almost moribund. He plowed the ground, cutting
a deep and broad furrow as he went his way, and in
the upturned soil such laborers as Birney and Garrison
and Chase planted the seed that rooted and grew until
it yielded a plentiful harvest.
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES
The divergent characteristics of the East and the
West were never more clearly shown than in the progress
of the Anti-Slavery movement. Efforts were made
to plant Abolition societies at various points throughout
the West, but they failed to take permanent root and
soon disappeared. The failure was not due to
any lack of interest, but rather to an excess of zeal
on the part of the Western supporters of the cause.
Society organizations on the lines of moral suasion
were too slow and tame to suit them. They preferred
the excitement of politics. They believed in
the superior efficacy of a political party, and to
its upbuilding they gave their energies and resources.
In the “long run” they were amply vindicated,
but for all that, the favorite Eastern method for
organized effort had its advantages.
The East, and especially New England, always believed
in societies. If anything of a public nature
was to be promoted or prevented, a society always
appealed to the New Englander as the natural instrumentality.
There is a tradition that when Boston was ravaged by
a loathsome disease, a number of its leading citizens
came together and promptly organized an anti-smallpox
society.
