Of all abominations in the sight of southern members of Congress, the alleged right of slaves to offer petitions to the national legislature, was the most atrocious, striking, in their opinion, a fatal blow at the authority of the mas- ters. Mr. Adams, however, told the House, " If slaves were laboring under grievances and afflictions not incident to their condition as slaves, but to their natures as human beings, born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, and it were in the power and competency of the House to afford them relief, and if the House would permit me, I most assuredly Would present their petition ; and, if that avowal deserves the censure of the House, I am ready to receive it. I would not deny the right of petition to slaves. I would not deny it to a horse or a dog, if they could arti- culate their sufferings, and I could relieve them."
When threatened with an indictment for his anti-slavery 25* course by a southern Member, he rephed, " Did the gen- tleman think to frighten me from my purpose by his threat of a grand jury ? He mistook his rnan. I am not to be frightened from the discharge of a duty by the in- dignation of the gentleman, nor by all the grand juries in the Universe."
As slavery demanded for its protection, the suppression of the right of petition and the hberty of speech, he freely canvassed its claims to such sacrifices, on the part of the free states. He spoke of it as " The God-defying institution," Mr. Clay had contended that that was pro- perty which the laws made so. " The soul of man," said Mr. Adams, " cannot by human laws, be made the pro- perty of another. The owner of a slave is the owner of a living corpse ; but he is not the owner of a man." He de- clared, " unyielding hostility against slavery is interwoven with every pulsation of my heart. Resistance against it, feeble and inefficient as the last accents of a failing voice may be, shall still be heard, while the power of utterance shall remain." In the presence of the slaveholding mem- bers he avowed, that in his prayers to Almighty God he daily invoked Him for the aboHtion of slave^^^ The in- ternal traffic did not escape his anathema : " If," said he, *'the African slave trade was piracy, the