Chapter 3 Washington (1850-1854) Summary

Adams takes a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1850, and this step in his education, helps to fix his worldview. It is his first time in a slave state. To him, everything in the South seems ragged and poor, and he concludes that slavery is the cause.. He calls the South "the sum of all wicked ness," and yet at the same time, he finds it appealing. He becomes more firmly anti-slavery, and yet begins to be aware of contradictions in the world. The more he is educated the less he understands. The sense of contradiction deepens, because everyone reveres George Washington, yet Washington comes from Virginia, a slave state, and slavery is the sum of all wickedness and the cause, for Adams, of all that he finds unappealing about the South. He accepts the contradiction. Adams is still...