petition * The reasons assigned in the petition were : " First, because was at the time unknown to the House, and the Southern members, regarding it only in the Hght of an abohtion document, seized the occasion, to bring disgrace upon Mr. Adams, under the pretext of their own extreme devotion to the Union. Mr. Gilmer of Virginia, and lately Governor of the State, immediately offered a resolution declaring " that in presenting to the consideration of the House, a petition for the dissolution of the Union, the member from Massachusetts, has justly incurred the censure of this House." In his speech he avowed he was endeav- oring to stop the music of him, who, " In the space of one revolving moon Was statesman, poet, fiddler, and bufifoon."
That evening between forty and fifty of the slaveholding members met in council to consider how they should proceed. Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, made the meeting acquainted with the course he proposed taking in the morning, a course more decided than Mr. Gilmer's resolution. Accordingly the next morning he introduced a sub- stitute for the resolution before the House, consisting of a long preamble, setting forth the perjury and treason to which Congress was in\ited by the Petition ; together with a series of resolutions, concluding with, " Resolved, That the aforesaid John Quincy Adams, for this insult, the first of the kind ever oflfered to the Government, and for the wound he has permitted to be aimed through his instrumentality at the Constitution and existence of his country, the peace, security and hberty of the people of these States, might well be held to merit expulsion no union can be agreeable or permanent, which does not present prospects of reciprocal benefits. Second, because a vast proportion of the resources of one section of the Union, is annually drained to sustain the views and course of another section Third, because, judging from the history of past nations, that union, if persisted in, in the present course of things, will cer- tainly overwhelm the whole nation in utter destruction."
310 REVIEV/ OF THE MEXICAN WAR.