hat the danger of the abolition doctrines, when
brought home to Southern statesmen, may teach them the value of the
Union, as the only thing which can maintain their system of slavery."

On the course and feelings of Mr. Jefferson on this subject, Mr. Adams
thus expressed himself: "His love of liberty was sincere and ardent, but
confined to himself, like that of most of his fellow-slaveholders. He
was above that execrable sophistry of the South Carolina nullifiers,
which would make of slavery the corner-stone of the temple of liberty.
He saw the gross inconsistency between the principles of the Declaration
of Independence and the fact of negro slavery; and he could not, or
would not, prostitute the faculties of his mind to the vindication of
that slavery, which, from his soul, he abhorred. But Jefferson had not
the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation
of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of
his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and
impassioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that
very account, the book was published almost against his will. He
projected a plan of a general emancipation, in his revision of the
Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely
where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the
planters that they must, at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or
that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy
till he should himself be in the grave."

Mr. Adams was not long permitted to remain in retirement. In October,
1830, he was nominated, in the newspapers, to represent in Congress the
district of Massachusetts in which he resided. When asked if he would
consent to be a candidate, he replied, in the spirit which had governed
his whole life, never to seek and never to decline public service: "It
must first be seen whether the people of the district will invite me to
represent them. I shall not ask their votes. I wish them to act their
pleasure." In the ensuing November he was elected Representative of the
twelfth Congressional district of Massachusetts.

On the 3d of January, 1831, Mr. Adams thus remarked on the resolutions
of the Legislature of Georgia setting at defiance the Supreme Court of
the United States: "They are published and approved in the _Telegraph_,
the administration newspaper at Washington. By extending the laws o