to any other locality where only
national law prevailed, was free. He was censured in the House by a
large majority and resigned, but his Ohio constituency immediately
re-elected him.

[1836-1844]

Up to this time Giddings and Adams were the only pronounced anti-slavery
men in that body. Adams had acquiesced in the Missouri Compromise, but
all his subsequent career, especially his course in the House of
Representatives after 1830, is not only creditable to him so far as the
slavery question is concerned, but registers him as one of the most
influential opponents of slavery in our history. Refusing to be classed
with the Abolitionists, he was, in effect, the most efficient
Abolitionist of them all.

Previous to 1835, though petitions against slavery reached Congress in
great numbers and nettled many members, they had been received and
referred in the usual manner. But in February, 1836, the House created a
special committee to consider these petitions. It reported a resolution,
which passed under the previous question, that thereafter all papers of
the kind should be tabled without printing or reference. Adams declared
to the House: "I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the
Constitution of the United States, the rules of this House, and the
rights of my constituents." In this rencounter Adams advanced the view
on which the Emancipation Proclamation by and by proceeded, that
slavery, even in States, was not beyond reach of the national arm, but
would be at the mercy of Congress the instant slave-masters should
rebel. This, the first of the gag laws, was, however, enacted. The
second, or Patton gag, was passed on December 21, 1837, and the third,
or Atherton gag, a year later. The principle of these, practically
cutting off all petitions to Congress respecting slavery, was taken up
in the twenty-first rule of the House in 1840.

Mr. Adams was from the first the resolute and uncompromising foe of the
gag policy. Wagon-loads of petitions came to him to offer, among them
one for his own expulsion from the House and one to dissolve the Union,
and he presented all.

February 6, 1837, he inquired of Mr. Speaker whether or not it would be
appropriate to offer a petition in his hand from slaves, whereupon the
pro-slavery members flew at him like vampires. After much uproar, in
which Adams gave as good as was sent him, he sarcastically reminded his
already infuriated assailants that the petition was in favor of