Defence of Free Speech (1842)

BY REPRESENTATIVE JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

MR. ADAMS then proceeded to remark that the gentleman from Albemarle, (Mr. GILMER) after most perseveringly and pertinaciously insisting on trying him (Mr. A.) twice over — after having spent several hours in that pleasant employment — had thought proper to say — after he (Mr. A.) had declared that he had presented the petition from what he considered the injunction of his God — that he (Mr. G.) was willing to withdraw his resolution, provided he (Mr. A.) would withdraw the petition. No, no; he could not do that. The gentleman knew it perfectly well, and he must have supposed that he (Mr. A.) spoke to the wind, and not to this House, when he made the declaration he had done. But that proposition came to the point and issue of this whole question — that was to say, to the total suppression of the right of petition to the whole people of this Union. That was what the gentleman now brought forward; and he was not content with the variety of forms under which petitions were excluded, some of which forms were too ridiculous to be adopted by any sensible House of Representatives, such, for instance, as a member raising the question of reception, and then moving to lay the man’s own proposition on the table.

He did not know how many plans they had got for excluding petipoint where it might bear on the members of this House, and intimidate tions. But that was not enough. Until gentlemen could bring it to a them from the performance of their duty in presenting petitions, they could not be satisfied nor gratified. No. But if the gentlemen could get a solemn vote of this House censuring members for presenting petitions, then, they thought, this question would be settled; they thought the freemen of the North would not send petitions on any subject they thought proper to oppose. When gentlemen had got their chains on the members of the North when the language was held to them, Ay, present your petitions, but you do it under the penalty of violating the privileges of the House — then, they thought, the matter would be ended. But he promised them that it would not be ended; he promised them that they would have the people coming here (to use the expression of a sublime and lofty poet of England) "besieging, not beseeching."

If he had withdrawn the petition, he would consider himself as having sacrificed the right of petition; as having sacrificed the right of habeas corpus; as having sacrificed the right of trial by jury; as having sacririced the sacred confidence of the post office; as having sacrificed the freedom of the press; as having sacrificed the freedom of speech; as having sacrificed every element of liberty that was enjoyed by his fellow-citizens; because, if he had proved craven to his trust under the intimidation of the charges of the gentleman from Albemarle and the gentleman from Kentucky, never more would the House have seen a petition presented from the people of the Union, expressing their grievances in a manner that might not be pleasing to the members of the "peculiar institution," until at length the people should teach them the lesson that, however their representatives might be intimidated from the discharge of their duty, they (the people) would be their own champions, anti the defenders of their own rights. There was the deadly character of the attempt made to put him down — to charge him as a criminal for presenting a petition. Did the gentleman from Albemarle think that that was the way to appease dissatisfaction and discord? Let him look to the public presses of the North upon this very transaction — from New York, or even from Philadelphia, northward — and see the opinions which they had already expressed as to the manner in which he had been persecuted. And if that gentleman and the gentleman from Kentucky thought that this censure upon him, (Mr. A.) produced as they were attempting to produce it, would appease discord and silence discussion, they would find very different sentiments prevailing. . . .

. . . There was no justification for the Editors of the Intelligencer in refusing to continue their reports of his case, because he complained of the injustice done him. They declared that they would not report at all except what came authentically from him. Was this justice to him or justice to the public who were so intensely anxious in the part of the country from which he came, to see not only what he said in his defence, but what was said against him?

It was his fortune yesterday to occupy the whole day, and he believed, he did, in the course of it, make disclosures important to the country, and that ought to be known. When the masked battery was opened upon him by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. MARSHALL) charging him with high treason and other high crimes, he had not half an hour allowed him. It came upon him like a clap of thunder. He had no time to make a proper defence. Upon what, then, could he rely but upon the justice and fidelity of the Reporters. Such a state of things existed in this city, when debates of this nature came up, as to furnish one of the strongest reasons why the Congress of the United States ought to sit in a place where there was no slavery. In the first place, there was a slavery prejudice against him for years past, as he had shown by the anonymous letters addressed to him that he read the other day, one of which said that his villanous course had been watched, and threatened him with assassination. There was a prejudice against him on the part of all slaveholders Who conceived that his course in Congress affected their interests, and this prejudice was altogether unsuited to a grave, formal, judicial trial of a man arraigned for high and capital crimes. In the next place the public press under that same influence was doing him a positive and negative injustice. One press filling the public mind with prejudice against him even to utter misrepresentation and vituperation, equal to that of the triumvirate who had arraigned him, while the other had suppressed material parts of his defence. Here was, on the one hand, the interference of the press against a persecuted than before his judges and his jurors, and on the other hand, the National Intelligencer, under that same influence, though not to an equal extent, after having done him negative injustice, would not do justice to him by continuing the publication of his defence. That prejudice arose not only from the fact that this was a slaveholding District, and filled with all kind of prejudices where the question of slavery was concerned; but from the fact that, in some parts of the South, all papers having the taint of Abolition, or containing Abolition matter in them, were suppressed and prevented from circulating. The press in this city knew that if they sent to the city of Charleston any papers containing matter which the authorities of that place conceived affected the slave interest, or even tainted in the slightest degree with Abolition, that they would be seized — pillaged by a committee of incendiaries, and destroyed. He held in his hand some documents which would show the extent of this interference in some parts of the country with the rights and liberties of the people, and their rights to the immunities of the post office. . . . Here was, he said, a violation of the rights of the people in the Post Office, and a violation of the freedom of the press. Here was, he said, a falsification of the life of one of the most illustrious patriots of the Revolution, (John Jay,) because it was conceived to contain matter offensive to the South. The freedom of the press was suppressed, and, not only that, but it was falsified. That, he said, was one of the strongest proofs of a great conspiracy on the part of the Southern portion of the Union to extend the law of slavery throughout the free States. But all this was not to be reported. The Intelligencer was to go to the South expurgated of every thing that he said; expurgated of this exposure of the conspiracy in the South to force slavery on the free States; expurgated of the conspiracy against him; and, in short, expurgated of his defence, because, forsooth, the Reporter for the Intelligencer did not think proper to report what he said, in consequence of his having complained of a suppression of some of the most material parts of his defence. . . .

Mr. ADAMS then continued the presentation of Abolition petitions of every description, such as petitions for the abolishment of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia; for the recognition of the independence of Hayti; remonstrating against the admission of Texas into the Union; against the admission of Florida; for the repeal of the 21st rule; to remove the seat of Government to one of the free States in the alternative of refusing to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; censuring the conduct of the American Consul at Nassau, New Providence, in relation to the mutineers of the Creole, and requesting his recall. Some of these petitions coming under the 21st rule, were not received, and others had the question of reception raised on them, and that question was, in each case, laid on the table. Mr. ADAMS, in conclusion, said that he had now get [got] through with all his petitions, with the exception of the two to dissolve the Union, and, as he had before observed, he would, in the present disposition of the House, preserve them for a future occasion.

, 27 Cong., 2 sess. (Blair and Rives, Washington, 1842), 208–215 passim, February 5 and 12, 1842.