mportant
or exciting as that might at one time or another happen to be, that
Mr. Adams was to win in Congress that reputation which has been (p. 243)
already described as far overshadowing all his previous career. A
special task and a peculiar mission were before him. It was a part of
his destiny to become the champion of the anti-slavery cause in the
national legislature. Almost the first thing which he did after he had
taken his seat in Congress was to present "fifteen petitions signed
numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of
slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia." He simply
moved their reference to the Committee on the District of Columbia,
declaring that he should not support that part of the petition which
prayed for abolition in the District. The time had not yet come when
the South felt much anxiety at such manifestations, and these first
stones were dropped into the pool without stirring a ripple on the
surface. For about four years more we hear little in the Diary
concerning slavery. It was not until 1835, when the annexation of
Texas began to be mooted, that the North fairly took the alarm, and
the irrepressible conflict began to develop. Then at once we find Mr.
Adams at the front. That he had always cherished an abhorrence of
slavery and a bitter antipathy to slave-holders as a class is
sufficiently indicated by many chance remarks scattered through his
Diary from early years. Now that a great question, vitally (p. 244)
affecting the slave power, divided the country into parties and
inaugurated the struggle which never again slept until it was settled
forever by the result of the civil war, Mr. Adams at once assumed the
function of leader. His position should be clearly understood; for in
the vast labor which lay before the abolition party different tasks
fell to different men. Mr. Adams assumed to be neither an agitator nor
a reformer; by necessity of character, training, fitness, and official
position, he was a legislator and statesman. The task which accident
or destiny allotted to him was neither to preach among the people a
crusade against slavery, nor to devise and keep in action the thousand
resources which busy men throughout the country were constantly
multiplying for the purpose of spreading and increasing a popular
hostility towards the great "institution." Every great cause has need
of its fanatics, its vanguard to keep far in advance of wha