rications of his chosen
people, he sometimes gave them statutes which were _not good_."

On the 2d December, 1839, at the opening of the Twenty-Sixth Congress,
the clerk began to call the roll of the members, according to custom.
When he came to New Jersey, he stated that five seats of the members
from that state were contested, and that, not feeling himself authorized
to decide the question, he should pass over those names, and proceed
with the call. This gave rise to a general and violent debate on the
steps to be pursued under such circumstances. It was declared by Mr.
Adams that the proceeding of the clerk was evidently preconcerted to
exclude the five members from New Jersey from voting at the organization
of the house. Innumerable questions were raised, but the house could not
agree upon the mode of proceeding, and from the 2d to the 5th it
remained in a perfectly disorganized state, and in apparently
inextricable confusion. The remainder of the scene is thus described, in
the newspapers, by one apparently an eye-witness:

"Mr. Adams, from the opening of this scene of confusion and anarchy,
had maintained a profound silence. He appeared to be engaged most of
the time in writing. To a common observer he seemed to be reckless
of everything around him. But nothing, not the slightest incident,
escaped him.

"The fourth day of the struggle had now commenced. Mr. Hugh A.
Garland, the clerk, was directed to call the roll again. He
commenced with Maine, as usual in those days, and was proceeding
towards Massachusetts. I turned and saw that Mr. Adams was ready to
get the floor at the earliest moment possible. His eye was riveted
on the clerk, his hands clasped the front edge of his desk, where he
always placed them to assist him in rising. He looked, in the
language of Otway, like a 'fowler eager for his prey,'

"'New Jersey!' ejaculated Mr. Hugh Garland, 'and--'

"Mr. Adams immediately sprang to the floor.

"'I rise to interrupt the clerk,' was his first exclamation.

"'Silence! Silence!' resounded through the hall. 'Hear him! Hear
him! Hear what he has to say! Hear John Quincy Adams!' was
vociferated on all sides.

"In an instant the most profound stillness reigned throughout the
hall,--you might have heard a leaf of paper fall in any part of
it,--and every eye was riveted on the venerable Nestor of
Massachusetts--the pur