hed his letter of resignation, which gave all the
facts in the case. The Whig Senators and Representatives immediately
met in caucus and adopted an address to the people. It was written
by Mr. John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, and it set forth in temperate
language the differences between them and the President, his
equivocations and tergiversations, and in conclusion they repudiated
the Administration.

Caleb Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, then serving his
fourth term in the House, espoused the cause of President Tyler,
and boldly opposed the intolerant action of his Whig associates.
Years afterward Franklin Pierce told his most intimate friend,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, that Caleb Cushing had such mental variety
and activity that he could not, if left to himself, keep hold of
one view of things, but needed the influence of a more stable
judgment to keep him from divergency. His fickleness was intellectual,
not moral. Mr. Cushing was at that time forty-one years of age,
of medium height, with intellectual features, quick-glancing dark
eyes, and an unmusical voice. He spoke with ease and fluency, but
his speeches read better than they sounded. His knowledge was vast
and various, and his style, tempered by foreign travel, was classical.
He had mastered history, politics, law, jurisprudence, moral science,
and almost every other branch of knowledge, which enabled him to
display an erudition as marvelous in amount as it was varied in
kind.

The Southern Representatives, who had regarded Mr. Cushing with
some apprehension as a possible leader of the coming struggle for
the abolition of slavery, were well pleased when they saw him
breaking away from his Northern friends. When an attempt was made
to depose John Quincy Adams from the Chairmanship of the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, because he had stood up manfully for
the right of petition, the irate ex-President asserted in the House
that the position had been offered to Mr. Cushing, who was also a
member. This Mr. Cushing denied, but Mr. Adams, his bald head
turning scarlet, exclaimed: "I had the information from the
gentleman himself."

In this debate, Mr. Adams went to some length into the history of
his past life, his intercourse and friendship with Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, during their successive Presidential
terms. He spoke of their confidence in himself, as manifested by
the various important offices conferred upon him, alluding