s an Adams. In 1807 he definitely broke with the Federalist
party--for what he regarded as its slavish crouching under English
outrages, conduct which had been for years estranging him--by supporting
Jefferson's Embargo, as better than no show of resistance at all; and
was for a generation denounced by the New England Federalists as a
renegade for the sake of office and a traitor to New England. The
Massachusetts Legislature practically censured him in 1808, and
he resigned.

His winning of the Presidency brought pain instead of pleasure: he
valued it only as a token of national confidence, got it only as a
minority candidate in a divided party, and was denounced by the
Jacksonians as a corrupt political bargainer. And his later
Congressional career, though his chief title to glory, was one long
martyrdom (even though its worst pains were self-inflicted), and he
never knew the immense victory he had actually won. The "old man
eloquent," after ceasing to be President, was elected in 1830 by his
home district a Representative in Congress, and regularly re-elected
till his death. For a long time he bore the anti-slavery standard almost
alone in the halls of Congress, a unique and picturesque figure, rousing
every demon of hatred in his fellow-members, in constant and envenomed
battle with them, and more than a match for them all. He fought
single-handed for the right of petition as an indefeasible right, not
hesitating to submit a petition from citizens of Virginia praying for
his own expulsion from Congress as a nuisance. In 1836 he presented a
petition from one hundred and fifty-eight ladies, citizens of
Massachusetts, "for, I said, I had not yet brought myself to doubt
whether females were citizens." After eight years of persistent struggle
against the "Atherton gag law," which practically denied the right of
petition in matters relating to slavery, he carried a vote rescinding
it, and nothing of the kind was again enacted. He had a fatal stroke of
paralysis on the floor of Congress February 21st, 1848, and died two
days later.

As a writer he was perspicuous, vigorous, and straightforward. He had
entered Harvard in the middle of the college course, and been graduated
with honors. He had then studied and practiced law. He was Professor of
Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard from 1806 to 1809, and was well drilled
in the use of language, but was too downright in his temper and purposes
to spend much labor upon artistic eff