inst all odds of numbers and under all
disadvantages of circumstances the past repeated itself, and Mr. Adams
alone won a victory over all the cohorts of the South. Several
attempts had been made during the debate to lay the whole subject on
the table. Mr. Adams said that he would consent to this simply because
his defence would be a very long affair, and he did not wish to have
the time of the House consumed and the business of the nation brought
to a stand solely for the consideration of his personal affairs. These
propositions failing, he began his speech and soon was making such
headway that even his adversaries were constrained to see that the
opportunity which they had conceived to be within their grasp was
eluding them, as had so often happened before. Accordingly on February
7 the motion to "lay the whole subject on the table forever" was (p. 288)
renewed and carried by one hundred and six votes to ninety-three.
The House then took up the original petition and refused to receive it
by one hundred and sixty-six to forty. No sooner was this consummation
reached than the irrepressible champion rose to his feet and proceeded
with his budget of anti-slavery petitions, of which he "presented
nearly two hundred, till the House adjourned."

Within a very short time there came further and convincing proof that
Mr. Adams was victor. On February 26 he writes: "D. D. Barnard told me
he had received a petition from his District, signed by a small number
of very respectable persons, praying for a dissolution of the Union.
He said he did not know what to do with it. I dined with him." By
March 14 this dinner bore fruit. Mr. Barnard had made up his mind
"what to do with it." He presented it, with a motion that it be
referred to a select committee with instructions to report adversely
to its prayer. The well-schooled House now took the presentation
without a ripple of excitement, and was content with simply voting not
to receive the petition.

In the midst of the toil and anxiety imposed upon Mr. Adams by this
effort to censure and disgrace him, the scheme, already referred to,
for displacing him from the chairmanship of the Committee on (p. 289)
Foreign Affairs had been actively prosecuted. He was notified that the
Southern members had formed a cabal for removing him and putting Caleb
Cushing in his place. The plan was, however, temporarily checked, and
so soon as Mr. Adams had triumphed in the House the four Southern