carry on the military operations for keeping the Indians from aiding the Mexicans.

Mr. Adams, in a speech made in Congress, on this call for money, in May, 1836, unriddled this whole plan; and in another speech pointed out the course of the administration toward Mexico, and its desire to get a large slice of her territory, enough for several new slave states.

Charge was made against Mr. Adams, that in negotiating for the Floridas he had ceded the whole of Texas to Mexico, and General Jackson, the president, was referred to as authority for the statement. Mr. Adams assured Congress, that when that negotiation was made, he laid it before General Jackson and it received his approval. Jackson denied this; but Mr. Adams produced his diary, where the facts and dates were recorded as he had stated.

This movement to enlarge the slave territory, aroused the people of the north to the aggressive and multiplying and overbearing character of slavery; and they at once began to discuss it, and consider the subject of its restraint. Petitions began to be sent to Congress for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the territories. These petitions were usually sent to Mr. Adams and he presented them. They multiplied, and he still presented them. He respected the people's right of petition, and felt it his duty to give their respectful petitions a respectful presentation. Whatever the subject petitioned for, he presented the petition. He did it chiefly to maintain the right of petition to a free people. It often caused fearful and disgraceful scenes in the House of Representatives, brought upon him storms of abuse; yet, with unflinching moral purpose and courage, he continued, through several terms to present the petitions, sometimes two hundred a day, and the House continued to lay them on the table. By resolutions, votes, intimidations, threats of assassination and expulsion, and the most insulting abuse, he was resisted. The House was often in anarchy, but with unwavering firmness, adroitly watching his opportunity to speak for the right of petition, he presented petitions, till at last he won a triumphant

victory. Long is the history of that memorable contest, but there is room here for only this reference to it.

In December, 1835, President Jackson sent to Congress a message relative to a bequest of four hundred thousand dollars, from James Smithson, of London, to the United States, for the purpose of establishing at Washington an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," and referred the subject to Congress for its consideration. The message was referred to a committee of which Mr. Adams was made chairman. He entered into the acceptance and use of this gift with great spirit. He gave the whole strength of his mind and heart to carrying the designs of Mr. Smithson into effect. Mr. Adams made a report to Congress on the subject in which he set forth the nobleness of the purpose of the donor, the breadth and grandeur of the results to mankind of that purpose faithfully and wisely carried out; the honor thus conferred upon our country, and something of the history of the Smithson family as among the most honored in the British kingdom. He concluded his report by offering a bill authorizing the president to receive and take measures to found The Smithsonian Institute. Few public acts of Mr. Adams gave him more pleasure. When the fund was received he was more instrumental than any other man in founding the great institution which is such an honor and aid to our country and mankind. In his addresses on this subject he displayed a great amount of scientific and historical learning. Probably no other public man in the country so valued solid learning or so signally illustrated its effects in his own life.

In the latter part of his life, when he was ripe in years as he was in learning and virtue, he gave in many parts of the country and on many important occasions, addresses, orations, speeches, which abound in wisdom, learning, patriotism and high moral sentiment. There was hardly any subject of great importance that he did not speak upon in and out of Congress. The subjects of slavery, internal improvements, the advancement of the country, dueling, intemperance, corruption in office and in politics, were constantly receiving his most vigorous attention. He

often arraigned his country for its injustice and cruelty to the Negro and the Indian. On every possible occasion he pleaded for justice in their behalf, and righteous dealing as the law for a nation as for an individual.

His discussion in Congress of the subject of dueling in the presence of duelers, illustrates the courage and character of the grand old man who never cowered in human presence or was turned from duty by human insolence or power.

He was often pained and mortified by the sectionalism, venality and brutality of members of Congress and higher officers of government, and never hesitated in his place to censure those whose conduct disgraced his country. He was such a living encyclopædia of learning, history, law, moral principle and religious devotion, that he was a standing rebuke to the selfish, sectional and party spirit that controlled many of the officials and politicians about him. He was profoundly anxious lest these evil spirits should degenerate and destroy his country which to him was the hope of the world. He had lived through its whole existence, been honored by all its presidents, held high offices under them all, been president himself; had a history of every important transaction and of the attitude and conduct of every leading individual connected with the government from the beginning; had a record also of the action and politics of all foreign governments and our relations to them; of the progress of our legislation, of the tariff, internal improvements, the development of our manufactures, the extension of our territory; of the extension of slavery and the artifices by which it had been accomplished; in a word he had a record of our national life in his and his father's diary and his accurate and capacious memory supplied all the details; so that he was authority- the nation in himself, all the later years of his life; the patriarch of America, having been instrumental in developing and preserving this grand national estate.

He had great interest in the temperance cause, which in his later years was commanding the attention of his countrymen. He understood its necessity and usefulness, and gave it the powerful support of his voice and example.

Through his whole life Mr. Adams was an intense worker; he studied everything he took hold of to the bottom; always made sure that he was right before speaking; always knew his authority; took infinite pains to know the whole of every subject that was important to the well being of his country. He was usually the first man in his seat every morning in the House, and the last man to leave at night. He gave an absorbing interest to the business in hand; and was very much of the time in resolute opposition to the legislation of Congress, as it was through his whole congressional career, in the interest of slavery and its extension. That interest removed him from the presidential chair and controlled the administrations of Jackson, Van Buren, and Tyler-controlled the government from his removal from the presidency to the day of his death.

Mr. Adams was a man of great physical vigor, which sustained him in active health through the intense labors of his long life. He was an early riser, an absteminous liver, temperate, prudent, regular in all his habits; an excellent walker, often walking a number of miles before breakfast; a good swimmer; fond of good company; an excellent talker; a lover of home; simple and republican in dress and manners; plain, honest, genuine; too fair and square, and positive to be popular; yet so thorough, and manly and grand as to command almost universal respect. He was a genuine Puritan, deeply and consistently religious; a great student of the bible, a Unitarian in theology, yet in hearty sympathy with all christian people. He was a reformer a maker anew of life's ways, so vigorous and persistent as to seem to be an iconoclast. In his opposition to wrong he used solid shot-words that wounded, that smelt of passion and power. He was no milk-and-water man, was mighty in fire and storm-a granite tower in the whirlwind defying its assaults. All in all, he was one of America's grandest products, honored at last in all the world as one of its greatest and best On the twentieth of November, 1846, he was stricken with paralysis at his son's house in Boston. This confined him for several weeks. But at the opening of Congress he returned to his post, and was prompt and active as he had always been,

until the twenty-first of February, 1848, at half-past one o'clock in the afternoon, he was stricken again. He was caught and held from falling by members near him. He was unconscious, till three o'clock, when consciousness returned and he said, faintly: "This is the end of earth, I AM CONTENT." These were his last words. He lived until seven o'clock in the evening of the twenty-third, when the spirit of John Quincy Adams left the scenes of earth for those in the immortal realm of its father, in the eighty-first year of its age. Thus closed a life which will ever be worthy of the profoundest study and emulation of mankind.