ll the friends of human rights turned
instinctively to JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Nor were their expectations
disappointed. Without hesitation he espoused the cause of the Amistad
negroes. At the age of seventy-four, he appeared in the Supreme Court of
the United States to advocate their cause. He entered upon this labor with
the enthusiasm of a youthful barrister, and displayed forensic talents, a
critical knowledge of law, and of the inalienable rights of man, which
would have added to the renown of the most eminent jurists of the day.

"When he went to the Supreme Court, after an absence of thirty years, and
arose to defend a body of friendless negroes, torn from their home and
most unjustly held in thrall--when he asked the Judges to excuse him at
once both for the trembling faults of age and the inexperience of youth,
having labored so long elsewhere that he had forgotten the rules of
court--when he summed up the conclusion of the whole matter, and brought
before those judicial but yet moistening eyes, the great men whom he had
once met there--Chase, Cushing, Martin, Livingston, and Marshal himself;
and while he remembered that they were 'gone, gone, all gone,' remembered
also the eternal Justice that is never gone--the sight was sublime. It was
not an old patrician of Rome, who had been Consul, Dictator, coming out of
his honored retirement at the Senate's call, to stand in the Forum to levy
new armies, marshal them to victory afresh, and gain thereby new laurels
for his brow; but it was a plain citizen of America, who had held an
office far greater than that of Consul, King, or Dictator, his hand
reddened by no man's blood, expecting no honors, but coming in the name of
justice, to plead for the slave, for the poor barbarian negro of Africa,
for Cinque and Grabbo for their deeds comparing them to Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, whose classic memory made each bosom thrill. That was worth
all his honors--it was worth while to live fourscore years for that."
[Footnote: Theodore Parker.]

This effort of Mr. Adams was crowned with complete success. The Supreme
Court decided that the Africans were entitled to their freedom, and
ordered them to be liberated. In due time they were enabled, by the
assistance of the charitable, to sail for Africa, and take with them many
of the implements of civilized life. They arrived in safety at Sierre
Leone, and were allowed once more to mingle with their friends, and enjoy
God's gift of freedom,