slave-power had prevented the re-election of his father and of
himself to the Presidential chair, and he poured forth the hoarded
wrath of half a century. Lord Morpeth, who was then in Washington,
and who occupied a seat in the floor of the House near Mr. Adams
during the entire debate, said that "he put one in mind of a fine
old game-cock, and occasionally showed great energy and power of
sarcasm."

Mr. Wise became the prosecutor of Mr. Adams, and asserted that both
he and his father were in alliance with Great Britain against the
South. Mr. Adams replied with great severity, his shrill voice
ringing through the hall. "Four or five years ago," said he, "there
came to this house a man with his hands and face dripping with the
blood of murder, the blotches of which are yet hanging upon him,
and when it was proposed that he should be tried by this House for
the crime I opposed it." After this allusion to the killing of
Mr. Cilley in a duel, Mr. Adams proceeded to castigate Mr. Wise
without mercy.

At the spring races, in 1842, over the Washington Course, Mr.
Stanly, of North Carolina, accidentally rode so close to the horse
of Mr. Wise as to jostle that gentleman, who gave him several blows
with a cane. Mr. Stanly at once sent a friend to Mr. Wise with an
invitation to meet him at Baltimore, that they might settle their
difficulty, and then left for that city. Mr. Wise remained in
Washington, where he was arrested the next day, under the anti-
dueling law, and placed under bonds to keep the peace. Mr. Stanly
remained at Baltimore for several days, expecting Mr. Wise. He
was the guest of Mr. Reverdy Johnson, under whose instruction he
practiced with dueling-pistols, firing at a mark. One morning Mr.
Johnson took a pistol himself and fired it, but the ball rebounded
and struck him in the left eye, completely destroying it. Mr.
Stanly returned the next day to Washington, where mutual friends
adjusted the difficulty between Mr. Wise and himself.

The vaulted arches of the old Supreme Court room in the basement
of the Capitol (now the Law Library) used to echo in those days
with the eloquence of Clay, Webster, Choate, Sargent, Binney,
Atherton, Kennedy, Berrien, Crittenden, Phelps, and other able
lawyers. Their Honors, the Justices, were rather a jovial sort,
especially Judge Story, who used to assert that every man should
laugh at least an hour during each day, and who had himself a great
fund of humorous anec