Buren succeeded to the Presidency
of the United States. The undeviating zeal with which he had supported
all the plans of Andrew Jackson, especially those for dismembering
Mexico and annexing Texas to the Union as a slave state, had proved, to
the satisfaction of the slaveholders, that reliance might be placed on a
Northern man to carry into effect Southern policy.

On the 14th of October ensuing Mr. Adams delivered a speech, in the
House of Representatives, on a bill for "adjusting the remaining claims
upon the late deposit banks." When this bill was in discussion in a
committee of the whole house, Mr. Adams asked the author of it (Mr.
Cambreling, of New York) to what banks certain words, which he stated,
were intended to apply. Cambreling replied that Mr. Adams could answer
his own interrogatory by reading the bill himself. Mr. Adams then
proceeded to state several other objections to the terms of the bill,
and confessed that his faculties of comprehension did not permit him to
understand its phraseology. Mr. Cambreling rose quickly, and remarked
that, at so late a period of the session, the last working night, he
could not waste his time in discussing nouns, pronouns, verbs, and
adverbs, with the gentleman from Massachusetts. Mr. Adams replied:
"Well, sir, as language is composed of nouns and pronouns, verbs and
adverbs, when they are put together to constitute the law of the land
the _meaning_ of them may surely be demanded of the legislator, and
those parts of speech may well be used for such a purpose. But, if such
explanation be impossible, it certainly ought not to be expected that
this house will consent to pass a law, composed of nouns and pronouns,
verbs and adverbs, which the author of it himself does not
understand."[1]

[1] _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. III., pp. 167,
168.

"On which," said Mr. Adams, "I took the floor, and, in a speech of
upwards of two hours, exposed the true character of the bill, and of
that to which it is a supplement, in all their iniquity and fraud. I
made free use of the computations I had drawn from the reports of the
Secretary of the Treasury, and minutely scrutinized the bill in all its
parts, and denounced the bargain made in the face of the house by
Cambreling and the members of the debtor states, procuring their votes
for the postponement of the bill by promising them increased indulgence
for their banks. Cambreling, who could not answer me, kept u