"Lord Morpeth was an attentive spectator and auditor of these scenes of turbulence; and it was interesting to see a British statesman looking up to learn from such a source the unwritten history of his own country, as well as of Europe. For such it was, when Mr. Adams gave the history of the movements at the court of the Emperor Alexander, and his connection with them, which resulted in the Russo-British alliance and in the overthrow of Napoleon. The early-chosen favorite of Washington, the trusted counsellor of Jefferson, the much-honored agent of Madison, the guide and chief support of Monroe, the restorer of the purity of the Washingtonian epoch to the Presidential chair, and for the last ten years the bold champion of universal liberty, stood there baited by absurd charges of perjury and treason, by insignificant beings of yesterday.
"The monument of a past age, a beacon to the present, a landmark to the future, he towered above the little things around him. The beautiful poetic appeal to Virginia, with which he concluded, caused a thrill of delighted admiration in the whole assembly. The emphasis, the pathetic intonation, touched every heart. The triumph of Mr. Adams was complete."
On the eleventh day of this debate, Mr. Adams, in opening his defence, said that he had been charged by his assailant with consuming an unreasonable portion of the time of the house with his own affairs; but he thought that six days could not be deemed an extravagant requirement for the defence of a man situated as he was, when a great portion of that period had been consumed by his assailants, their associates, and others. He did not desire to be responsible for any unnecessary consumption of the hours of debate. He wished, indeed, to state the whole affair; and, to accomplish this, he should require a great deal more time. He had laid out a great platform for his defence, if he was forced to continue it; but he was willing to forego it all, provided it could be done without sacrificing his rights, the rights of his constituents, and those of the petitioners. He then stated that if any gentleman would make a motion to lay the whole subject on the table, he would forbear to proceed any further with his defence. This motion was immediately made by Mr. Botts, of Virginia, and the house decided in its favor, by a vote of one hundred and six to ninety-three. The petition from Haverhill was then taken up and refused to be received; one hundred and sixty-six in the affirmative to forty in the negative.
On the 12th of April, 1842, Mr. Adams, as chairman of the committee on the Smithsonian fund, made a report in the form of a bill, the object of which was to settle three fundamental principles for the administration and management of the fund in all after time. The bill provided, First, that the principal fund should be preserved and maintained unimpaired, with an income secured upon it at the rate of six per cent. a year, from which all appropriations for the purposes of the founder should be made. Second, that the portions of the income already accrued and invested in state stocks should be constituted funds, from the annual income of which an astronomical observer, with suitable assistants, should be supported. Third, that in the future management of this fund no part of it should be applied to any institution of education, or religious establishment.
To the persevering spirit with which Mr. Adams on every occasion urged upon Congress and the people of the United States the observance of those fundamental principles which he had first asserted and which he afterwards uninterruptedly maintained, notwithstanding a local and interested opposition to them, may be justly attributed the preservation of that fund, and its subsequent application to the objects of the founder's bequest, although in his prevailing desire that an astronomical observatory should be one of them, he did not succeed. Connected with this report, all the previous proceedings in relation to it were again published, for the information of Congress and the public.
On the 14th of the same month, a bill making appropriations for the civil and diplomatic expenses of government being under consideration, Mr. Linn, of New York, moved to strike out so much of it as related to a minister to Mexico, expressing his belief that the object of this mission was to bring about the annexation of Texas. A debate ensued, which was desultory and declamatory on the part of those advocating the appropriation. Mr. Wise, of Virginia, said that the tyrant of Mexico was now at war with Texas; that he threatened to invade her territory, and never stop until he had driven slavery beyond the Sabine; and that the gentlemen opposed to the mission would let him loose his servile horde, and yet send no minister to remonstrate or to threaten. Our citizens had claims on that government to the amount of twelve or thirteen millions. Ten or a dozen of our citizens—of our own native citizens—were in degrading bondage in the mines of Mexico, or sweeping its streets; and yet a minister to Mexico was opposed because the President and a party in this country wished to annex Texas to the Union. It was not only the duty of this government to demand the liquidation of our claims and the liberation of our citizens, but to go further, and demand the non-invasion of Texas. We should at once say to Mexico, "If you strike Texas, you strike us." And if England, standing by, should dare to intermeddle and ask, "Do you take part with Texas?" his prompt answer would be, "Yes, and against you."
Mr. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, followed on the same side, maintaining that Texas ought to be annexed to the Union, even at the risk of a war with Great Britain. He said that he was a man of peace, and was not insensible to the evils of war, but he contended that they were greatly exaggerated. He wished the British minister to understand that war would not do us so much harm as it would his own country. In the first place, if we chose to apply the principles of war, it paid all the state debts at once,—two hundred millions of dollars. At all events, it suspended the interest during the war. We had a sufficient population, the capacity of drilling that population, and all the materials for war. There were two vessels now within the sound of his voice to which there was nothing in a British or French navy to be compared. Our lakes were covered with transporting steamboats, which could easily be made effective for harbor defence. We lived in a republican country, in an armed nation; and he would rather take this nation as it was than the most completely armed nation in the world. Having proceeded at great length in this strain, stating various particulars, some of which may be gathered from Mr. Adams' reply, he concluded by challenging opposition to the opinion that there was no right of search in time of war, and that such a claim was a monstrosity. The greatest question in the world, which now agitated nearly all Christendom, was this mixed question of the slave-trade and the right of visit and search. To statements and arguments of this force and nature Mr. Adams made a scrutinizing and unanswerable reply, of which the following extract will sufficiently exhibit the power and quality.
"The gentleman from Pennsylvania began by saying that he was for peace—for universal peace. Then followed a most learned dissertation to prove that it was an entire mistake to suppose that we are not now prepared for war; and to demonstrate that a nation which goes into a war unprepared will infallibly conquer; that it must be so; that every unarmed and unprepared nation always had conquered its armed opposers. No; we are not unprepared for war,—not at all,—because we have in sight of the windows of this capitol two armed steamers; one of them, as I am informed, nearly disabled, so that she will need, in a great measure, to be rebuilt, leaving for our use, in case of immediate hostilities, one entire steamer, and with that we are to burn London; and though the gentleman readily admitted that it was possible, nay, very probable, that New York would be burnt too, yet, as London was four or five times as large, we should have a great balance of burning on our side. Yes; we were to conquer Great Britain and burn London, and we were told that it would be a very cheap price for all this to have the city of New York burnt in turn, or burnt first. And this was an argument for peace!
"What else did the gentlemen say? What else did he not say? He made a great argument and a valorous display of zeal in relation to the right of search. O, that—that was a point never to be conceded—no, never. He maintained that there is no such thing as a right of search—no such right in time of war, none in time of peace. Well, I do agree with the gentleman partially on that one point, so far as to believe that there is no need of our coming to an issue with Great Britain there, and we have not as yet. After reading, as I have done, and carefully examining the papers put forth on both sides, I asked myself, What is the question between us? And I have heard men of the first intelligence say that they found themselves in the very same situation. The gentleman has made a total misrepresentation of the demand of Great Britain in the matter. She has never claimed the right to search American vessels—no such thing. On the contrary, she has explicitly disclaimed any such pretension, and that to the whole extent we can possibly demand. What is it we do demand? Not that Great Britain should disclaim the right to search American vessels, but we deny her the right to board pirates who hoist the American flag. Yes; and to search British vessels, too, that have been declared to be pirates by the laws of nations, pirates by the laws of Great Britain, pirates by the laws of the United States. That is the demand of our late minister to London, whose letters are so much admired by the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Now, it happens that behind all this exceeding great zeal against the right of search is a question which the gentleman took care not to bring into view, and that is the support and perpetuation of the African slave-trade. That is the real question between the ministers of America and Great Britain: whether slave-traders, pirates, by merely hoisting the American flag, shall be saved from capture.
"I say there is no such thing as an exemption from the right of search by the laws of nations, and I challenge and defy the gentleman to produce the proof. The right of search in time of war we have never pretended to deny. Nay, we ourselves exercised that right during the last war. And the Supreme Court of the United States, in their decisions of prize cases brought before them, sustained us in doing so, and said it was lawful according to the laws of nations. And, indeed, we should have had a very poor chance in a war with Great Britain, without it.