avery. At an age when most men would leave the stormy field
of public life, and retire to the quiet seclusion of domestic comfort,
these great topics inspirited Mr. Adams with a renewed vigor. With all the
ardor and zeal of youth, he placed himself in the front rank of the battle
which ensued, plunged into the very midst of the melee, and, with a
dauntless courage, that won the plaudits of the world, held aloft the
banner of freedom in the Halls of Congress, when other hearts quailed and
fell back! He led "the forlorn hope" to the assault of the bulwarks of
slavery, when the most sanguine believed his almost superhuman labors
would be all in vain. In these contests a spirit blazed out from his noble
soul which electrified the nation with admiration. In his intrepid bearing
amid these scenes he fully personified the couplet quoted in one of his
orations:--

"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I follow, with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."

The first act in the career of Mr. Adams as a Member of Congress, was in
relation to slavery. On the 12th of December, 1831, it being the second
week of the first session of the twenty-second Congress, he presented
fifteen petitions, all numerously signed, from sundry inhabitants of
Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in
the District of Columbia. In presenting these petitions, Mr. Adams
remarked, that although the petitioners were not of his immediate
constituents, yet he did not deem himself at liberty to decline presenting
their petitions, the transmission of which to him manifested a confidence
in him for which he was bound to be grateful. From a letter which had
accompanied the petitions, he inferred that they came from members of the
Society of Friends or Quakers; a body of men, he declared, than whom there
was no more respectable and worthy class of citizens--none who more
strictly made their lives a commentary on their professions; a body of men
comprising, in his firm opinion, as much of human virtue, and as little of
human infirmity, as any other equal number of men, of any denomination,
upon the face of the globe.

The petitions for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, Mr. Adams considered relating to a proper subject for the
legislation of Congress. But he did not give his countenance to those
which prayed for the abo