es his soul by sophistical reasonings into a
belief that this same war still exists in free communities between the
capitalist and free labor." The fallacy and falsehood of this theory he
analyzes and exposes, and proceeds to state and reason upon various
measures of Congress connected with these topics, at great length, and
with laborious elucidation.[4]

[4] For this letter see _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series,
vol. V., p. 55.

On the 27th of October, 1838, Mr. Adams addressed a letter to the
district he represented in Congress, in which he touched on those points
of national policy which most deeply affected his mind. Among many
remarks worthy of anxious thought, which subsequent events have
confirmed and are confirming, he traces the "smothering for nearly three
years, in legislative halls, the right of petition and freedom of
debate," to the influence of slavery, "which shrinks, and will shrink,
from the eye of day. Northern subserviency to Southern dictation is the
price paid by a Northern administration for Southern support. The people
of the North still support by their suffrages the men who have truckled
to Southern domination. I believe it impossible that this total
subversion of every principle of liberty should be much longer submitted
to by the people of the free states of this Union. But their fate is in
their own hands. If they choose to be represented by slaves, they will
find servility enough to represent and betray them. The suspension of
the right of petition, the suppression of the freedom of debate, the
thirst for the annexation of Texas, the war-whoop of two successive
Presidents against Mexico, are all but varied symptoms of a deadly
disease seated in the marrow of our bones, and that deadly disease is
slavery."

When, in the latter part of June, 1838, news of the success of Mr. Rush
in obtaining the Smithsonian bequest, and information that he had
already received on account of it more than half a million of dollars,
were announced to the public, Mr. Adams lost no time in endeavoring to
give a right direction to the government on the subject. He immediately
waited upon the President of the United States, and, in a conversation
of two hours, explained the views he entertained in regard to the
application of that fund, and entreated him to have a plan prepared, to
recommend to Congress, for the foundation of the institution, at the
commencement of the next session. "I suggested t