Beschreibung:

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY President . Autograph letter signed ("J.Q. Adams") to the abolitionist Lewis Tappan of New York; Washington, D.C., 15 July 1845. 2 1/2 pages, 4to . ADAMS CONSIDERS "THIS GREAT REVOLUTION": THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY An important and very revealing letter on the abolition of slavery. "The pamphlets transmitted by you have been forwarded to their respective addressees; and I have distributed those directed to me. If you can spare me 200 more I can dispose of them, I trust usefully to the cause. It would be far more agreeable to me, to concur in opinion with you upon the controverted principles connected in the abolition of Slavery, than to differ with you; but it is a case in which my judgement depends not upon will. -- My opinion is that Slavery never will be abolished in the District of Colombia otherwise than it has been abolished in Pennsylvania, New York, and other States --- prospectively --. Two years ago, I offered to the House Resolutions to that effect. The House refused to receive them and the leading abolitionists declared their explicit disapprobation of them. "Since that time...I have concluded that no action of mine can in the present state of things contribute either to the abolition of Slavery in general, or to its extinguishment in the District of Columbia. Believing as I do that this great revolution in the history and condition of man upon the earth will be accomplished by the will of his maker, and through means provided by him in his good time, I have felt the obligation to act my part in promoting it so far as any exertion on my part may be cheered by his smile of approbation inferrable from success. But when I find my opinions...conflicting with the deliberate judgement and purpose of both parties in this great controversy, I feel the finger of Heaven pressing upon my lips and dooming me to silence and inaction. I consult the sortes biblicae , and read that when David proposed to build a Temple to the Lord, the prophet, speaking from the inspiration of his own mind, approved his design and exhorted him to carry it into execution. But when reposing upon his pillow, the Lord appeared to him in vision, and commanded him to go to David and tell him, to build a Temple to the Lord, but that he was not the chosen instrument to accomplish that great undertaking, but that it was to await the halcyon age reserved for the wisest of mankind, Solomon, his son....." Lewis Tappan (1788-1873), a New York merchant, was a founder of the New York Anti-Slavery Society and later, of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society: "his activities in behalf of abolition drew upon himself hate and obloquy; in July 1834 his house was wrecked by a mob" (DAB). He was a member of the committee working to free the famous Amistad captives, defended before the Supreme Court by J.Q. Adams. Pennsylvania (in 1780) and New York (in 1799) had, like several other states, adopted gradual emancipation laws (New Yorks' was not complete until 1827). The institution of slavery in the District of Columbia, was widely regarded (not just by abolitionists) as a particularly shameful survival. It was not until April 1862, when, with the support of the radical elements in the Congress, an act providing for compensated emancipation of "persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia" was passed by Congress and signed by President Lincoln. Adams had aroused the antagonism of pro-slavery forces in Congress by declaring that slavery could be abolished under the war powers under the Constitution of the Government (an idea later taken up by Lincoln); in 1836 Congress invoked the gag rule to exclude abolition petition, but during the next decade, Adams, in spite of his advanced age, read into the record a vast number of petitions opposing the admission of Texas as a slave state (on 30 March 1840, he presented no fewer than 511 petitions!), and in February 1837 caused a near riot in the House when he submitted a petition purpo