serted
altar, and a brighter, purer, and more lasting flame arose out of the
extinguished embers.

"He looked in years. But in his years were seen
A youthful vigor, an autumnal green."

The Republic had been extended and consolidated; but human slavery, which
had been incorporated in it, was extended and consolidated also, and was
spreading, so as to impair the strength of the great fabric on which the
hopes of the nations were suspended. Slavery therefore must be restrained,
and, without violence or injustice, must be abolished. The difficult task
of removing it had been postponed by the statesmen of the Revolution, and
had been delayed and forgotten by their successors. There were now
resolute hearts and willing hands to undertake it, but who was strong
enough, and bold enough to lead? Who had patience to bear with enthusiasm
that overleaped its mark, and with intolerance that defeated its own
generous purposes? Slaveholders had power, nay, the national power; and
strange to say, they had it with the nation's consent and sympathy. Who
was bold enough to provoke them, and bring the execration of the nation
down upon his own head? Who would do this, when even abolitionists
themselves, rendered implacable by the manifestation of those sentiments
of justice and moderation, without which the most humane cause, depending
on a change of public opinion, cannot be conducted safely to a prosperous
end, were ready to betray their own champion into the hands of the
avenger? That leader was found in the person of John Quincy Adams. He took
his seat in the House of Representatives in 1831, without assumption or
ostentation. Abolitionists placed in his hand petitions for the
suppression of slavery in the District of Columbia, the seat of the
federal authorities. He offered them to the House of Representatives, and
they were rejected with contumely and scorn. Suddenly the alarm went
forth, that the aged and venerable servant was retaliating upon his
country by instigating a servile war, that such a war must be avoided,
eyen at the cost of sacrificing the freedom of petition and the freedom of
debate, and that if the free States would not consent to make that
sacrifice, then the Union should be dissolved. This alarm had its desired
effect. The House of Representatives, in 1837, adopted a rule of
discipline, equivalent to an act, ordaining that no petition relating to
slavery, nearly or remotely, should be read, debated or consid