by law
the delivery of any fugitive upon the claim of his master. All which,
he said, should be done, not to violate, but to redeem from violation,
the constitution of the United States. It was indeed to be expected
that such laws would again be met by retaliatory laws of Missouri and
the other slaveholding states, and the consequences would be a
dissolution _de facto_ of the Union; but that dissolution would be
commenced by the article in the Missouri constitution. "That article,"
declared Mr. Adams, "is itself a dissolution of the Union. If
acquiesced in, it will change the terms of the federal compact--change
its terms by robbing thousands of citizens of their rights. And what
citizens? The poor, the unfortunate, the helpless, already cursed by
the mere color of their skin; already doomed by their complexion to
drudge in the lowest offices of society; excluded by their color from
all the refined enjoyments of life accessible to others; excluded from
the benefits of a liberal education,--from the bed, the table, and all
the social comforts, of domestic life. This barbarous article deprives
them of the little remnant of right yet left them--their rights as
citizens and as men. Weak and defenceless as they are, so much the more
sacred the obligation of the Legislatures of the states to which they
belong to defend their lawful rights. I would defend them, should the
dissolution of the Union be the consequence; for it would be, not to
the defence, but to the violation of their rights, to which all the
consequences would be imputable; and, if the dissolution of the Union
must come, let it come from no other cause but this. If slavery be the
destined sword, in the hand of the destroying angel, which is to sever
the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut asunder the bonds of
slavery itself."

"In the House of Representatives, on the 4th of December," writes Mr.
Adams, "Mr. Eustis, of Massachusetts, made a speech against the
resolution for admitting Missouri into the Union without condition, and
it was rejected, _ninety-three_ to _seventy-nine_. On the 19th of
December he offered a resolution admitting Missouri into the Union
conditionally; namely, 'from and after the time when they shall have
expunged from their constitution the article repugnant to the
constitution of the United States.' On the 24th of January, 1821, this
resolution was rejected by a vote of one hundred and forty-six to six.
It satisfies neither party