ubmit to the gag-rule, and would persist in
presenting abolition petitions." Mr. Adams then illustrates the
powerful effect of such movements to overawe members from the free
states.

"Another practice," he observed, "of this communion of Southern,
sectional, and Locofoco antipathy against me is, that I never can take
part in any debate upon an important subject, be it only upon a mere
abstraction, but a pack opens upon me of personal invective in return.
Language has no word of reproach or railing that is not hurled at me;
and the rules of the house allow me no opportunity to reply till every
other member of the house has had his turn to speak, if he pleases. By
another rule every debate is closed by a majority whenever they get
weary of it. The previous question, or a motion to lay the subject on
the table, is interposed, and I am not allowed to reply to the grossest
falsehoods and most invidious misrepresentations."

This course of party tactics Mr. Adams exhibits by a particular
narrative of the misrepresentation to which he had been subjected,
closing his statement with the following acknowledgment: "I must do many
of the members of the House of Representatives from the South the
justice to say that their treatment of me is dictated far more by the
passions and prejudices of their constituents than by their own. Were it
not for this curse of slavery, there are some of them with whom I should
be on terms of the most intimate and confidential friendship. There are
many for whom I entertain high esteem, respect, and affectionate
attachment. There are among them those who have stood by me in my
trials, and scorned to join in the league to sacrifice me as a terror to
others."

In September, 1842, at the invitation of the Norfolk County Temperance
Society, Mr. Adams delivered at Quincy an address,--not perhaps in
coincidence with the prevailing expectations of that society, but in
perfect unison with his own characteristic spirit of independence. He
instituted an inquiry into the effect of the _principles_ of total
abstinence from the use of spirituous liquors, the administration of
pledges, or, in other words, the contracting of engagements by vows;
and examined the whole subject with reference to the essential
connection which exists between temperance and religion. In the course
of his argument he maintains that the moral principles inculcated by
the whole tenor of the Old Testament, with regard to temperance,
are