Wrote james james traubs biography of John Quincy Adams is especially strong. Adams was a complicated hero, a patrician visionary. One of the most important diplomats in American History and finally slaverys greatest enemy in american politics, james traub does justice to the man and his time. A historian of complexity and a writers eye for drama and detail. After his talk and question and answer, james traub will be signing of one level up. Outside the National Archives store. Please welcome james traub to the National Archives. [applause] thank you very much for that introduction. When i was coming here this morning and taking a taxi to penn station in new york, every bus i passed had a giant sign on the side that said hamilton. And so naturally i thought what if lynn manual moran, producer, writer and star of the show came to me and said i have done the hamilton hiphop things. What have you got for me with John Quincy Adams . So i thought i need to have a story to tell. This is the first book, i will tell you a story i would tell him if he ever came to me to ask. Saturday, january 21, 1842, John Quincy Adams who was then 74 years old, former president of the United States, former secretary of state, former senator and diplomat and now a member of the house of representatives of massachusetts decided to provoke a confrontation with the slaveholders who dominated the congress. For the previous seven years adams waged a solitary struggle to protect the rights of citizens to Petition Congress to end slavery or the slave trade. That right was guaranteed by the constitution, but slaveholders resolutely unwilling to allow the peculiar institution to become a matter of public debate past what was known as the gag order to pretend such positions from being presented. Every year adams and a few others presented such petitions, and every year allies among the free states passed a new gag order. Once again in december 18, 41, at the beginning of that term of congress the gag had been passed. Adams insisted on testing it by bringing one petition after another to the floor of the house under the pretext that they did not technically fall within the compass of the gag order. On the 21 stoop st he presented exasperating petition. Why is virginia, rainer of north carolina, wc johnson of maryland, scores more slaveholders striving constantly to stop him by starting questions of order and every now and then screaming at the top of their voices that is false i demand you put him down. Are we to sit here and endure such insults, shut them out of that old harlequin. That gives you a sense of the temper of congress. A perfect uproar burst forth every two or three minutes, with his bold surgery would smite his cleaver into the very bones. Slaveholding members of the house left their seats and gathered in a quarter of the hall where he stood. Whenever any of them broke in upon him he would say i see where the shoe pinches, mister speaker, it would pinch more. I will deal out to the gentleman, they will find it hard to digest. If before i get through every slaveholder, slave trader and slave greeter on this floor does not get materials for better reflection it shall be no fault of mine. On monday the 23rd, reading one antislavery petition after another, this time the speaker ordered him to his chair, hours on end, a few allies including the antislavery champion Joshua Giddings of ohio gathered protectively by his side leaders of slave factions got up from their seats to have her nearby lest they miss a word of the old mans increasingly quaver he voice. And throw insults at him as well. Now adams pulled another page from a sheaf of papers that he held close to his chest. He turned to the speaker and he said the following. He said i hold in my hand the memorial which is to say petition of Benjamin Emerson and 45 other citizens in the state of massachusetts, pray in congress to adopt immediate measures for the peaceful dissolution of the union of these states. The petitioners no longer wish to see the resources of the free states for the benefit of slave states. The slave are chrissy, which is the word adams used, had been waiting for sufficient provocation to move. Adams, and henry wise in virginia rose to propose a resolution to censure the former president , very grave president. Adams applied good. You should think about that. Good. Wasnt thinking about the trial that was to come. He was delighted. It was a war he had fought and gained and looked forward to. In an uproar the house adjourned. Let me now back up a little bit and explain how adams had come to this point in his extraordinary career. Like virtually all new englanders, adams was profoundly opposed to slavery and considered it a gross violation of american republican principles and christian principles as well. He also considered slavery to be in effect a settled issue. The constitution had been silent on it, states were free to do as they wish. There was nothing the federal government could do or in madisons point of you should do. His views only began to change in 1820, the era of the missouri compromise. What happened then was 22 states elected free and 11 slave. Missouri petitioned to gain entrance to the union as a slave state which would destabilize the balance and it provoked a huge debate. Missouri was far north, there was a strong case to be made that all the other free states were above and a tremendous debate broke out in the conference and adams, secretary of state, had no place in that debate. He felt debate was dominated by southerners with highly regarded eloquent speakers and it was deeply frustrating to him. He wished he could speak but he couldnt. He raised the issue, almost entirely southerners and slaveholders. Adams was flabbergasted. Afterwards he took a walk down pennsylvania avenue with john calhoun. John calhoun would become the great ideologue, intellectual justifier of slavery but Adams Calhoun was a brilliant man, adams considered calhoun to be a tremendous intellectual integrity and adams continue to talk, calhoun listened, those are very noble principles but where i come from we think they only apply to white people, not black people. Adams went home that night, had a diary, kept a diary, quite extraordinary, for me a great resource. And he would write down verbatim the conversations that happened that day if he thought they were important. So he went back home at some point, began to write and he was thinking about the fact that a man is gifted as calhoun who he admired could sincerely hold views adams found repellent and to him at least selfevidently false. There was a larger truth in this. One that had not presented itself to adams until now. Transcribing his train of thought, it came to him. The practice of slavery taints the sources of moral principle. It perverts human reason it reduces men endowed with logical powers that slavery is sanctioned by the christian religion. The impression reduced upon my mind by the progress of this discussion is the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the constitution of the United States is morally and politically vicious. This was an astonishing conclusion for a man raise from the early moment of consciousness to regard union as the supreme good, who had devoted his career as a diplomat and a politician to defending the integrity of the United States against foreign and domestic threats. Adams was a burkeian conservative who abhorred revolutionary upheaval but recent himself into a position too honest to reason himself out of. Later that year, negotiations over missouri continued, the state Legislature Passed a law that banned free people of color from the state, even if you were a free person, do not come to the state if you are a person of color and this enraged adams and i think maybe burst the last stays. He saw this as provocation to the free states but to the cause of human freedom. A friend of his, a colleague, adams in his diary records what he said to this man. I will review a little piece of this, quite astonishing. Thinking about slaves, thinking about not just enslavement but racism in a way that is surprising for a man black people are the only ones he knew were servants and yet there was an act of sympathy and this is what he wrote. Week and defenseless as they are, so much more sacred obligation of the legislatures of the states to which they belong to defend their lawful rights. I would do that should the dissolution of the union be a consequence. It would not be the defense but the violation of their rights to which all the consequences would be imputable. Of the dissolution of the union must come let it come from no other cars than this. If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of the union the same sword will cut asunder the bonds of slavery itself is a dissolution of the union for the cause of slavery will be followed by a servile war in slaveholding states combined with a war between the two severed portions of the union. It seems to me that its result must be the extirpation of slavery from this whole continent and calamitous and is awaiting as this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its final issue that is god shall judge me, i dare not say it is to be denied. That was adams in 1820 writing to himself, not to anybody else. Indeed, for the remainder of his tenure as secretary of state as president he said nothing about slavery either in his diary or to others, it remains a nonissue. It was a buried issue. The policy remained inside him but was not the focus of his career. After he was beaten for reelection by Andrew Jackson he then went back to congress, the first president to return to congress and remains the only president who served in the house of representatives after the presidency. By now, and Antislavery Movement had begun in the United States. By 1835 activists had begun preparing and sending to the few sympathetic congressman petitions drying an end to the slave trade for the abolition of slavery in the District Of Columbia over which the federal government had jurisdiction. That is when southerners began to call for it. Adams was too harsh a realist to believe in an open public debate southerners would acknowledge the evil of slavery and agree to its abolition. He did not think that was possible. He said to himself and Still Believes only civil war would bring an end to slavery and now when it was a reality he could not say out loud what he said to himself that the idea of civil war was acceptable, something the most extreme radical abolitionists would adopt. He was in a quandary. He didnt have doubts about the merits of the quest but didnt know how to get there. Didnt know what he is a congressman could do. I think he thought that the petition issue was a way to force into public debate the question of slavery and expose the full horror of practice and insulate, was the best he could do. Beyond that, adams was what we would now call a First Amendment absolutist. The question for him took the form of petitions. It is not easy to understand now but at that time there were no lobbies, no specialinterest groups, no right in campaigns, no internet, no way citizens could have their voices heard. Petitions were the way they could do that and in adamss own mind the word petition had an additional resonance. The most humble servant can petition in the most dictatorial governments, how could you deny a citizen of a democracy the right to a petition. For adams these two issues, the issue of a petition of free speech and the issue of slavery converged to make a thing so powerful that it would sees him for the rest of his time in congress and the rest of his life. From that time forward it became a mania. And of session for adams. He was prepared to stand up where nobody else was. It is worth saying that many other men who shared adamss views felt it was foolish, reckless, pointless to wage a battle because you would never succeed, congress was dominated by slaveholders thanks to the compromise in the constitution, talking about slavery would achieve nothing, just gum up the works in congress. Other people wouldnt do it. Adams said i dont care, i will do it by myself. In every new session adams would present petitions, southerners would vote the gag order, adams would try to get around it, a fight would ensue until in 1837 adams presented a petition that purported to come from slaves themselves, which was an unspeakable violation from the point of view of slaveholders. He knew the idea that slaves might have the opportunity, the right to Petition Congress, if they had that right what other rights might they have. The fact is the petition was a fraud. Adams new it was a fraud, set him up because somebody knew he would present it and not only that the petition didnt offer an end to slavery. It was the opposite. The petition from these alleged slaves called for the preservation of slavery because slaves liked slavery. Adams didnt reveal that when he presented the petition in 1837. All the other congressman, he was presenting a petition from slaves demanding an end to slavery. Adams defended this thing. He said i would present a petition from a horse or a dog if it had the power of speech in writing. This was the first confrontation. This provoked the first attempt to censure adams which i wont describe, adams dominated the debate, decimated the opposition and by the time he was done, 22 of the 238 members of the house voted censure. Now we come forward five years with the memory of that humiliation, by this time there was a sizable Abolitionist Movement and other abolitionist, legislators in congress. This group, the activist congress, and abolition house, theodore well, antislavery essayist. And serves as the groups head of research and distribution of antislavery tracks. Nobody questioned that. They would present petitions that would put slaveholders in a blaze and that is what he did on january 21, 1842. Southerners also learned from their mistakes so they said lets appoint a chief prosecutor and they chose Thomas Marshall. Thomas marshall was a nephew of john marshall, was also a highly regarded lawyer, or rader, moderate, member of the whig party so the perfect person to represent their point of view so it didnt seem like slavery against antislavery. So several days later, probably january 25th, marshall began to speak and it was an astonishing spectacle, and immense event, crowds filled galleries of thes the house. Foreign ministers, attaches and privileged persons built a lobby in the outer space outside the hall. Speaker marshall who read a resolution to censure adams, in his version he raised the stakes considerably. Whereas, he asserted, dissolution of the union necessarily destruction of the constitution, the overthrow of the republic and violation of the legislators own oath, the petition adams had presented compelled members to involve the crime of high treason, adams deserved expulsion, an act of grace and diversity. This was a category each catastrophic reach on marshalls part. Marshall delivered an indictment he prefaced by long expressions of regard, formed his family and their place in history and professed himself astounded when such a revered figure presented to the house, so monstrous a document and not only presented that document but sought to have it referred to committees is leading to the conclusion that the dissolution of the union was a fair subject to be considered by the house. Marshalls profession of neutrality and rhetorical command left adams supporters depressed and corresponding degree. Both sides waited with excruciating anticipation. With all eyes on him adams rose slowly, looking about him friend to foe and it is no part of my intention to apply to the gentleman of kentucky at the time. What then was his intention . I call, adams went on, that a reading of the first paragraph of the declaration of independence, the clerk began to read. When in the course of human events, adams cried proceed, proceed, the clerk continued. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Adams ordered came to a stop. It is their right and duty to throw off such government. And very much alive at the time. His adversary, Thomas Marshall, adams was reminding and the connection to the founding documents and principles and more than that, just what those principles were. Look at high treason, he now went on, to advocate the dissolution of government never mind the declaration had been written to justify the dissolution of colonial minion, the real danger to the republic adams continued came not from petitioners but slaveholders. There was a concerted system and purpose to destroy civil liberty in the free states. The right of habeas corpus and trial by jury, the right of petition. Admittedly the most biased of spectators wrote old nestor had demonstrated fearlessness and majesty that furnished the moral slime that i ever witnessed, in a popular secular assembly. Now henry wise rose to deliver, wise was intemperate then, did not have any restraint and delivered a fiery, blistering, ugly attack on adams personally, on his father. Adams kept his cool for two days. When adams finally rose to speak, he made a very ingenious argument where henry wise was from design to remind everyone who John Quincy Adams was. It grieved him from the very soul to see these propositions come from virginia. If there is a state of the union for which he now felt an attachment later than any other to his native state it was virginia. In his earlier years it was from virginia he was introduced in the service of his nation first by George Washington who appointed him as a diplomat, whose warning voice had been depleted you to operate against him. And which boys had been to him from the time it was delivered down to this moment next to the holy scriptures on his heart and mind. Then adams turned back to john marshall, to Thomas Marshall and now he exchanged his dignified tone. The constitution of the United States, he observed, says what high treason is and it is not for him or his puny mind to define what high treason is and confound it with what