Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03891

Author/Creator: Adams, John Quincy (1767-1848)

Place Written: Washington

Type: Autograph letter signed

Date: 15 July 1845

Pagination: 3 p. : docket ; 25.5 x 20 cm.

Summary of Content: Written as congressman. A beautiful and deeply felt letter. Concerning the opposition of abolitionists to his bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Adams writes that with opposition from both abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates, he resorts to silence and inaction. He further writes that, consulting the ”sortes biblicae” (randomly opening a bible to learn one’s fortune or course of action), he found the passage where the Prophet [Nathan] advised King David that the Lord had not chosen him to build the Temple (2 Samuel 7: 2-13). He ends the letter here. (Adams died three years later. Compensated emancipation was enacted in April 1862.)

People: Tappan, Lewis, 1788-1873., Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848.

Historical Era: National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860

Full Transcript: Lewis Tappan, Esqr. New.York, Washington 15. July 1845., Dear Sir, The pamphlets transmitted by you have been forwarded to their respective addresses; and I have distributed those directed to me. If you can spare me 200 more I can dispose of them, I trust usefully to the cause. It would be far more agreeable to me, to concur in opinion with you, upon all the controverted principles connected with the abolition of Slavery, than to differ from you; but it is a case in which my judgment depends not upon my will. - My opinion is that Slavery never will be abolished in the District of Columbia otherwise than as it has been abolished in Pennsylvania, New.York and other States - prospectively - Two years ago, I offered to the House Resolutions to that effect. - The house refused to receive them and the leading abolitionists declared [inserted: their] explicit disapprobation of them. , [2] Since that time, and in consequence of this ascertainment, I have concluded that no action of mine can in the present state of things [strikeout] contribute either to the abolition of Slavery in general, or to its extinguishment in the District of Columbia - Believing as I do that this great revolution in the history and condition of man upon earth will be accomplished by the will of his maker, and through means provided by him in his good time, I have felt the obligation to act my part in promoting it so far as any exertion on my part may be cheered with his smile of approbation inferrable from success - But when I find my opinions in the formation of which my will has no dispensing power, conflicting with the deliberate judgment and purposes of both parties in this great controversy, I feel the finger of Heaven pressing upon my lips and dooming me to silence and inaction. I consult the sortes biblicae, and read that when David proposed to build a temple to the Lord, the prophet, speaking from the inspiration of his own mind, approved his design and exhorted him to carry it into execution - But when reposing upon his pillow, the Lord appeared to him in vision, and commanded [3] him to go to David and tell him, that he did well, in that it was in his heart, to build a Temple to the Lord, but that he was not the chosen instrument to accomplish that great undertaking, but that it was to await the halcyon age reserved for the wisest of mankind, Solomon, his Son., I am very respectfully Dear Sir, your friend and, Servt. J. Q. Adams., , [docket], Hon. J. Q. Adams, July 15/41.

Keywords/Subjects: President, Congress, Slavery, African American History, Government & Civics, Law, Abolition, Washington, D.C., Superstition, Religion, Politics

Sub Era: Age of Jackson

Background: Five years after the Amistad affair, and a year after the House of Representatives ended the Gag Rule, Adams expresses his resignation about the possibility of further actions against slavery, such as the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia. Not until April 1862, long after Adams’s death, did Congress pass an act providing for compensated emancipation of ”persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia.” , In 1836, Adams had warned the South that if a war was fought in the South, the government would abolish slavery. ”From the instant your slave-holding states become a theater of war--civil, servile, or foreign,” he predicted, ”--from that instant the war powers of the Constitution extend interference with the institution of slavery in every way that it can be interfered with.” , In 1846, a year after he wrote the following letter, Adams suffered a paralytic stroke. Although he recovered sufficiently to return to Congress, he suffered another stroke in February 1848 at his House desk. The stricken former President was moved to the Speaker of the House’s office, where he died two days later. With his death, the last tangible political link with the world of the founders was broken.

LOC Search Terms: African Americans., Slavery., Abolition.