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Human Freedom. The first struggle occurred on the right of petition, which Slave-masters with characteristic tyranny sought to suppress. This was resisted by the venerable patriot, and what he did was always done with his whole heart. Then was poured upon him abuse as from a cart. Slave-masters, "foaming out their shame," became conspicuous, not less for an avowal of sentiments at which Civilization blushed, than for an effrontery of manner where the accidental legislator was lost in the natural overseer, and the lash of the plantation resounded in the voice.

In an address to his constituents, 17th September, 1842, Mr. Adams thus frankly describes the treatment he had experienced:

“I never can take part in any debate upon an important subject, be it only upon a mere abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of personal invective in return, Language has no word of reproach and railing that is not hurled at me."

And in the same speech he gives a glimpse of Slave-masters:

“Where the South can not effect her object by brow-beating, she wheedles."

On another occasion he said, with his accustomed power:

“Insult, bullying, and threat, characterize the Slaveholders in Congress; talk, timidity, and submission the Representatives from the Free States."

Nor were the Slave-masters contented with the violence of words. True to the instincts of Slavery, they threatened personal indignity of every kind, and even assassination. And here South-Carolina naturally took the lead.

The Charleston Mercury, which always speaks the true voice of Slavery, said in 18387:

“Public opinion in the South would now, we are sure, justify an immediate resort to force by the Southern delegation, even on the floor of Congress, were they forthwith to seize and drag from the Hall any man who dared to insult them, as that eccentric old showman, John Quincy Adams, has dared to do."

And at a public dinner at Walterborough, in South Carolina, on the 4th of July, 1842, the following toast, afterwards preserved by Mr. Adams in one of his speeches, was drunk with unbounded applause:

“May we never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a Federalist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy Adams! [Nine cheers.]"

A Slave-master from South-Carolina, Mr. Waddy Thompson, in debate in the House of Representatives, threatened the venerable patriot with the “penitentiary;" and another Slave