, that bald, gray old man, his hands trembling with
constitutional infirmity and age, upon whose consecrated head the
vials of tyrannic wrath had been outpoured. Among the crowd of
slaveholders who filled the galleries he could seek no friends, and
but a few among those immediately around him. Unexcited, he raised
his voice, high-keyed, as was usual with him, but clear,
untremulous, and firm. In a moment his infirmities disappeared,
although his shaking hand could not but be noticed: trembling not
with fear, but with age. At first there was nothing of indignation
in his tone, manner, or words. Surprise and cold contempt were all.
But anon a flash of withering scorn struck the unhappy Marshall. A
single breath blew all his mock-judicial array into air and smoke.
In a tone of insulted majesty and reinvigorated spirit, Mr. Adams
then said, in reply to the audacious, atrocious charge of 'high
treason:' 'I call for the reading of the first paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence. Read it! read it! and see what that
says of the right of a people to reform, to change, and to dissolve
their government.'

"The look, the tone, the gesture, of the insulted patriot, at that
instant were most imposing. The voice was that of sovereign command.
The burthen of seventy-five winters rolled off, and he rose above
the puny things around him, who thought themselves his equals, from
being his associates.

"When the passage of the Declaration was read that solemnly
proclaims the right of reform, revolution, and resistance to
oppression, the old man thundered out, '_Read that again!_' and
he looked proudly round on the listening audience, as he heard his
triumphant vindication sounded forth in the glorious sentences of
the revolutionary Magna Charta.

"The sympathetic revulsion of feeling was intense, though voiceless.
Every drop of free, honest blood in that vast assemblage bounded
with high impulse, every fibre thrilled with excitement.

"A strong exhibition of the facts in the case, mostly in cold, calm,
logical, measured sentences, concluded the high appeal of Mr. Adams,
from the slaveholders of the present generation to the Father of
that system of revolutionary liberty with which he is the coeval and
the noblest champion. And then he sat down vindicated, victorious."

Apart from the exc