The Washington Globe, the acknowledged organ of the Democratic party at the seat of Government, spoke of Mr. Adams, as " a vulgar old man, who has forfeited 26* all claim, by his incorrigible malevolence, to the respect otherwise due tohis age and station," and declared " all his zeal, all his sympathies are against his country."
At a public dinner in Virginia, the company drank as a toast : " John Quincy Adams—once a man, twice a child, and now a demon." At a fourth of July dinner in South Carohna, the following toast was given : " May we never want a hangman to prepare a halter for John Quincy Adams." The company not only drank the toast, but accompanied it with nine cheers. In 1842, the democracy of Ohio, having the control of the Legislature, availed itself of the opportunity of making an acceptable oJBfering at the shrine of slavery, by declaring in the name and by the authority of the State in joint resolution, that, " John Quincy Adams had subjected himself to the merited censure and reprehension of his countrymen ;"
and " that the House of Representatives of the United States owed it to themselves, to stamp his course and conduct with the severest marks of its indignant disappro- bation and censure."
But the hatred felt against Mr. Adams, was not mani- fested only in indecent toasts, newspaper scurrility, and democratic obsequiousness to the slaveholders. Mr. Adams in a speech in the House (January 21st, 1839J, observed : "I have received letters from various quarters of the country, with post-marks showing that they have been mailed at places very distant from each other, con- taining many of them positive threats of assassination ;