Chapter XXXVI.

from the National Councils, and the House deem it an act of grace and mercy when they only inflict upon him their severest censures for conduct so utterly unworthy of his own past relations to the State, and his present position : ^ This they hereby do, for the maintenance of their own purity and dignity ; for the rest, they turn him over to his own conscience, and the indignation of all true Ameri- can citizens^ On the reading of the resolutions, there was a hurst of ajjj^lause from the Galleries and the House, so much so, that the Speaker interfered to repress it. The malignity of this assault Upon Mr. Adams was equalled only by its absurdity and its impudence. In pre- senting the petition he had expressly declared his disap- probation of its object. Congress being authorized by the Constitution to propose unlimited alterations in that instrument, every citizen has a constitutional right to ask them to propose any alteration he desires, although it may vir- tually dissolve the Confederacy ; and it is, moreover, pre- posterous to maintain that a union formed by consent of the partners, cannot by the same consent be severed. -It must also be recollected that the assault proceeded from a sectional party, that for a long series of years, has been threatening to dissolve the Union, if not permitted to govern it. Instead of instantly spurning this ridiculous and wicked persecution, the House, by a formal vote of 118 to Y5, resolved to consider the charges against Mr. Adams. He was thereupon put on trial, and Mr. Mar- shall and Mr. Wise of Virginia, acted as the leading Counsel of the prosecution. The latter acquitted the ac- cused of insanity, and avowed his conviction that ' he was more wicked than weak ;" but at the same time pro- nounced him " pohtically dead—dead as Burr—dead as Arnold. The people would look upon him with wonder, * Only two northern Democrats voted in the negative would shudder and retire." The dead culprit, however, evinced most astonishing vitality. The accused became the accuser ; his very persecution was proof of a conspiracy against the liberties of the North ; and, abaHdoning the defence of himself, he arraigned the slave-holders at the bar of the nation for endeavoring to destroy the right of Habeas