MASSACHUSETTS PROPOSING AN
AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN EFFECT TO ABOLISH
A REPRESENTATION FOR SLAVES.--FOURTH REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.
--INFLUENCE OF MR. ADAMS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY
AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--GENERAL JACKSON'S CHARGE THAT THE RIO
GRANDE MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBTAINED, UNDER THE SPANISH TREATY, AS A BOUNDARY
FOR THE UNITED STATES, REFUTED.--ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT WEYMOUTH.
--REMARKS ON THE RETROCESSION OF ALEXANDRIA TO VIRGINIA.--HIS PARALYSIS.
--RECEPTION BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--HIS DEATH.--FUNERAL HONORS.
--TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

In April, 1844, certain resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts,
proposing to Congress to recommend, according to the provisions of the
fifth article of the constitution of the United States, an amendment to
the said constitution, in effect abolishing the representation for
slaves, being under consideration, and a report adverse to such
amendment having been made by a majority of the committee, Mr. Adams,
and Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, being a minority, united in a report, in
which, concurring in the opinion of the majority so far as to believe
that it was not, at that time, expedient to recommend the amendment
proposed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, they were compelled to
dissent from the views and the reasons which had actuated them in coming
to that conclusion.

"The subscribers are under a deep and solemn conviction that the
provision in the constitution of the United States, as it has been
and yet is construed, and which the resolves of the Legislature of
Massachusetts propose to discard and erase therefrom, is repugnant
to the first and vital principles of republican popular
representation; to the self-evident truths proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence; to the letter and spirit of the
constitution of the United States itself; to the letter and spirit
of the constitutions of almost all the states in the Union; to the
liberties of the whole people of all the free states, and of all
that portion of the people of the states where domestic slavery is
established, other than owners of the slaves themselves; that this
is its essential and unextinguishable character in principle, and
that its fruits, in its practical operation upon the government of
the land, as felt with daily increasing aggravation by the people,