Original subtitles

Four generations of one family.

Their lives and causes reveal 150 years of American history.

What is the proper role for an ex -president of the United States?

John Quincy Adams, lately sixth president, ponders the question at the

home in Quincy, Massachusetts.

It is one on which he and his third son, Charles Francis, disagree.

This is what you should be doing.

writing the history of the family, vindicating grandfather.

Instead, you run back to politics at the first opportunity.

I have not said I would run. There was simply an anonymous paragraph suggesting

it in the Boston Daily Courier. They just want you out of the way when Henry

Clay runs for president.

I shall not run unless the people act spontaneously.

I used to ask your advice about my own future, Father.

And you always said...

Confine your attention to such business as you have.

This room is your business.

These papers are your business. This family, father.

But my own district, Charles.

My own district is my business as much as my family. Only 2 ,000 people.

There are 2 ,500 eligible voters in the Plymouth district.

You who have been president of the entire United States. But not elected by

people.

A man. cannot be degraded by serving the people as a representative in Congress.

Your mind is made up. No, it is not.

Age and infirmity have its privileges.

I am not well.

I have not the slightest desire to be elected to Congress.

It is too much to ask, Mr. Adams.

That I return to public life and renew all the mortification and the agony.

But I have been chosen, Louisa. Oh, to gratify your insatiable passion for

public office. I did not seek it. I did nothing.

I was chosen. You consented to run.

Only after being nominated.

I didn't work for it. The work was done by 1 ,817 voters from

22 towns, Louisa.

Three -fourths of the total vote.

The majority is undeniable.

Oh, no election, no appointment conferred upon me has ever given me half

pleasure.

I can't expect him to want to vote.

What of your health?

You no longer have the protection of executive office, you know.

Old enemies, old wounds, old scores to settle. Can you physically bear it? My

condition has remarkably improved since reading today's newspaper.

Besides, I'm thinking of the $8 per day I shall receive for each session of

Congress. Is $8 a day that important?

Plus 40 cents per mile travel allowance.

Don't forget that.

Mr. Adams, it will not be so very difficult for me.

I promise.

In truth, it will revive me to be back in Washington, away from this climate

Quincy.

It was kind of you to come tonight, Mr. Adams.

I know you are preparing to leave for Washington.

I understand, Monsieur de Tocqueville, that you are in this country making an

official study of penology.

Mr. Everett said you expressly wanted to meet me. I couldn't imagine why.

I had to come and find out.

Of penology, yes, but of democracy also.

What is it you wish to ask me?

Do you regard slavery as a great evil for the United States?

Yes, unquestionably.

It's in slavery that are to be found almost all of the embarrassments of the

present.

And fears of the future.

Is the number of slaves increasing?

Why have you chosen to ask me these things?

You are in a nationally conspicuous position.

There are others far more conspicuous.

Why are you surprised that I should ask you about slavery?

Because I've never spoken publicly on the subject.

Perhaps that is the reason.

And is that the reason I'm being asked to present anti -slavery petitions to

Congress weeks before I've taken my seat?

Will you?

Oh, yes.

I will present the petitions.

That doesn't mean I will support them or recommend any action.

That is in keeping with your stand in the past of not taking a stand.

But do I sense in your silence an inner abhorrence to the practice of slavery?

That may well be.

All 15 of these petitions make the same two pleas, that of the

abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself.

In the District of Columbia, I don't intend to read all 15.

Not so much out of consideration for...

my fellow members of the House, but because I am not yet used to the sound

own voice in this chamber, I move

that these petitions be referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia

with instructions to report the expediency of prohibiting the slave

in the District of Columbia.

Are we to infer that the...

A gentleman from Massachusetts does not instruct the committee to consider the

plea for abolition of slavery itself.

I don't trust my own voice after such long disuse.

I have said enough in my first speech before this august assemblage.

I am grateful for the privilege.

Mr. Pinkney.

Three.

All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers relating in any

way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of

slavery shall be tabled and that no further action whatever shall be taken.

The gentleman from Massachusetts has brought such a resolution upon himself

his incessant introduction of such petitions into this house. I hold this

resolution to be in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States,

to the rules of this house, and to the rights of my constituents.

Congress has no constitutional power to interfere in any way with slavery in any

of the states.

And it should not interfere in any way with slavery in the District of

Yes, yes.

Gentlemen.

Gentlemen.

There seems to be some feeling that I am attempting to introduce the subject of

abolition into the house.

It is true that some petitioners keenly

aggrieved. by the existence of slavery in a part of the country over which

Congress possesses exclusive jurisdiction in all matters whatsoever,

do seek its abolition in the District of Columbia. Mr.

Speaker, I rise to a point of order.

And to declare every human being free that steps foot on its soil.

Mr. Adams.

But, but, gentlemen,

there was, for example, a petition

from a group of slaves, which I was not permitted to read because it was from

slaves, and which I do not intend to read, but which was

actually a prayer.

against abolition.

What does he mean?

Slaves were afraid of losing their bondage.

They pleaded for the continuance of the institution of slavery.

They desired to serve their masters for as long as life will permit.

Now, since I endeavored to introduce that petition along with all the

others, It cannot be said that I am taking up the cause of abolition on this

floor.

I am not objecting to Mr.

Pinckney's resolution because it impedes the progress of abolition.

I am objecting to it because it interferes with the rights of my

to petition.

Mr. Adams.

Take your seat.

We will now proceed with the vote.

Will all those in favor of Mr. Pinckney's resolution signify by raising

right hand?

It was the wretched mills that killed John.

They have eaten into this family like gangrene.

That is not my own bitterness speaking. The word gangrene is your father's

epithet.

John would not give up, even in suffering and acute pain.

We begged him to leave Washington and rest at Quincy. Even your father begged

him. As you see, I forced myself to give your father every consideration. He...

Claude John to leave the mills.

But John was an Adams.

He persevered in his duty until he killed him.

You must try not to blame father.

And now there's still $30 ,000 owing on his son's grave.

For that is what the mills have become.

John's grave.

And herein lies the young, the beautiful.

The wires. You must go forward, Aunt Louisa. How can I when life itself does

go forward, only backward? It repeats itself.

John's death.

George's.

Mother?

If time is not going backwards, then what are we doing in this house?

We left it forever when we went to the president's mansion. That was to be the

end of this house.

After the president's mansion, we were to go...

I don't know where. All I know is that time has gone backwards and we've

returned to this house.

Did you know this house is mortgaged?

Yes, Mother.

And do you know why?

To buy the Columbia Mills.

To buy my son's grave.

We're mortgaged souls in a mortgaged house.

I must go, Mother.

Of course you must.

That's it, boss.

Thank you, my dear, for coming.

Will you be all right?

Mary's with me. And my grandchildren.

As long as they're in this house, I'm all right.

And your father here.

Charles.

Even though I must watch his strength and health ebb away.

Even though I must sacrifice my sons.

Even then, I am forced to admit that he is right.

Goodbye, Mother.

In the mutiny of the slaves which took place off Cuba, the captain of the ship

Armistead was murdered, as was the cook.

The Negro mutineers spared the lives of their Spanish owners, on condition that

they steer the ship eastward in the direction of Africa.

This the two Spaniards did by day, but by night they turned the ship westward

toward the United States.

Eventually they found themselves in Long Island Sound.

where the slaves were taken into custody. Mr. Adams, I... Oh, forgive me,

Tappan. Forgive me. I have been in correspondence with Mr. James H. Hackett

regarding Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet. And this is a lithographic copy

of my letter.

Send it to me, Mr.

Hackett. Examine it, Mr. Tappan. I came here to discuss the plight of the

Armistead survivors.

It is so perfect a facsimile.

That if it had been presented to me as the original, I should have acknowledged

it without an instant of hesitation as my own.

Mr.

Adams. Mr. Hackett says that he had the copy taken because he had lent the

original to so many of his friends and acquaintances that it had been nearly

used up.

You use the word slaves, Mr. Tappan.

I beg your pardon.

in referring to the Negroes on the Amistad.

He used the word slaves.

The men were not, in fact, slaves, if I understand it. They had been kidnapped

from Africa, taken to Cuba, where they were sold in the slave market.

Which was illegal, according to all existing treaties.

Quite correct.

Therefore, the two Spaniards were not their owners.

Another word you used.

I was trying to convey the position of the Spanish minister.

Who claimed that the Negroes should be returned to their owners as shipwrecked

property. That is Spain's position.

The lower courts have ruled against them. Now they have appealed to the

Court of the United States.

That is why I've come to you, Mr. Adams Frail.

Well, it seems more than likely that the Supreme Court will simply affirm the

rulings of the lower courts.

The Spaniards have added ammunition.

They now demand the return of the Africans to Havana, Cuba, to be tried

Spanish law.

The Supreme Court may feel compelled to reverse all previous rulings.

We cannot allow that to happen, Mr. Adams.

Is this another of your attempts to enlist me openly in the cause of

Mr. Tappan?

You profess indifference to the fate of the Armistead survivors, but I've seen a

letter in your hand expressing hope.

that no grand jury of free men could be found to indict the Africans for

vindicating their own liberty against slave traders and pirates.

I believe you refer to a letter I wrote to Mr. William Jay.

I do, sir.

That was a private letter.

You needn't fear, Mr. Adams.

He has had no lithographic copies made.

Well, we know how the Spaniards have been occupying their time.

What of the Negroes?

They are in the New Haven County Jail.

And you want me to represent them in the Supreme Court of the United States?

This is a case of life and death for these unfortunate men.

I'm an old man.

Your age is a matter of public record.

You'll admit that I'm an old man.

Old man eloquent.

That's what they call you.

I think I wanted you to tell me that.

Vanity. Mr.

Haggart actually wants my opinions on the tragedy of Othello.

That extension of my fame is more tickling to my vanity than it was to be

President of the United States.

And you too, Mr. Tappan.

You are appealing to my vanity.

Good morning, sir.

Are you still here?

Or have you gone away and come back?

Mr. Baldwin and Professor Gibbs are waiting to give you breakfast in the

dining room.

Did you rest well, sir?

I didn't rest at all.

I have been reading.

You should have rested.

You've had a long train ride and practically in the middle of the night.

When you have lived as long as I have with no trains at all, two and one half

hours from Hartford to New Haven, is expeditious to the point of being

egregious.

I feel I am as wrongfully put here as you are.

Shouldn't you be in class?

It's after nine o 'clock.

If you will forgive me, sir, escorting Mr. John Quincy Adams through the lobby

of the Tontine Hotel is far more instructional than any course offered in

curriculum of Yale College.

It was good of you to meet me at the railroad station.

and more than kind to bring me to my hotel, but I am quite all right now, I

assure you. The life of Mr. John Quincy Adams must be spared to his country to

carry on the struggle for free men.

You think I might not reach the dining room?

I did not know until this morning, sir, that there had been threats on your

life. I heard a man in the lobby say that you had deserted the abolitionist

cause under threats of assassination.

Well, when did I do that?

When you asserted in the House of Representatives that abolition could

effected through constitutional amendment.

There were threats of assassination.

But that is not the reason I said it.

I said it because I believe it. The man in the lobby threatened to make away

with you if you said anything further that sounded like a denunciation of

abolitionism.

Yes, well, in the South, they threatened me for doing too much. And in the

North, they threatened me for doing too little.

Oh, very well, young man.

I accept your protection.

Suppose a white man from Algiers escaped ashore in the United States and his

dark -skinned Algerian owners demanded his return because by the laws of

Algiers, white men may be treated as property.

No court in the United States, no court in all of Christendom would entertain

such a claim.

And when we find them here from the coast of Africa, the same rule must

the black as to the white.

I have read your admirable brief, Mr. Baldwin.

When did you find the time?

You've only just arrived at 8 o 'clock this morning.

It's been the routine of my life to do the bulk of my reading before breakfast.

And an excellent breakfast, too.

You make me a little ashamed I wasn't able to meet your train.

I was well met.

Will I be able to communicate with the Africans?

Professor Gibbs?

Oh, yes.

By visiting them every day, I was able to learn the word sounds for the first

ten numerals. Then, by haunting the waterfront here in New Haven and talking

African seamen, I was able to learn that they were members of the Mendi tribe.

And at last, I found an interpreter.

Professor Gibbs has been compiling a dictionary of their language and

them English.

Their leader, Senkwe, is even able to read aloud from the New Testament.

Well, gentlemen.

If you are ready.

Wouldn't you like to rest after your meal, Mr. Adams? It's a two -mile ride.

Once I start on my day, Mr. Baldwin, it is better not to stop.

Then let me help you.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

For they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are

persecuted for righteousness' sake.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Does he understand what he just read?

Dear Mr. Adams, peacemaker.

He understands that much, sir.

What did he say?

Your hands are shaking. He wishes to know if you too find the New England

too cold.

Tell him it is the winter of life that affects me. He would not understand

sir.

Carly, you may speak.

Is there something you wish to say to Mr. Evans?

Dear friend, Mr.

Adams, you.

have children and friends you love them you feel very

sorry if mendy take all to africa ship cook

say he kill he eat mendy we afraid

we kill ship cook we never kill captain

but he want to kill us

You love us.

You talk to the American court, the great court, and tell the

American people, make us free.

Dear friend, Mr.

Adams, we love you very much.

Thank you.

Do they understand the expression, thank you?

I think so, they just don't hear it very often

May I lock up?

There will be a messenger from the British minister.

At this late hour?

The British minister wishes to know what Her Majesty's government can do on

behalf of the captured Africans.

What can anyone do?

Didn't you say the decision of the Supreme Court would be against them?

invoke the Treaty of Ghent, Article 10.

Whereas... The traffic of slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of

humanity and justice.

And whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing

their efforts to promote its entire abolition...

Entire abolition.

The British minister must have this.

Before the trial begins in the morning.

I'll let you know when the messenger arrives.

Am I the last of your charges to be awake, Mary?

Aunt Louisa is resting quietly.

So is Mary Louisa.

Is your Aunt Louisa in correspondence with Charles?

Oh, yes.

Charles is most proud to have been elected to the state legislature and by

a large majority.

He was so afraid that I might embarrass him in his new political career.

I think he does feel easier now that he's been elected.

Oh, there's still time.

I might embarrass him yet.

I am very clear as to what the British minister should do.

Would I were half so clear as to what I myself should do.

I find myself arranging, rearranging documents with no clear frame for my

argument. Then you must extemporize.

That is what you have become known for.

Yes, and quite a contradiction in my character.

After an entire political career, planning every move, every word, to

find myself embarked on a second political career, not knowing what I'm

say next.

Extemporize. Mr. Adams, will your presence in the Supreme Court interfere

the presentation of further petitions in the House of Representatives?

Only insofar as I am unable to be in two places at one time. I have a petition

here from 45 citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, sir.

Your own state, sir.

These are the skeleton, my argument.

I confess I haven't put it all together.

So bewildered, Mr. Baldwin, as to leave me nothing but fervent prayer that

presence of mind may not badly fail me.

Well, look what room's full.

Not many ladies.

One of the judges of this court, Philip B. Barber, is dead.

He sat with us in consultation last evening until 10 o 'clock when we parted

from him in remarkably cheerful good humor.

He appears to have passed from sleep to death without a moment of conscious

suffering.

The court will adjourn until Monday morning.

15 years younger than I.

In what respect were these slaves, if indeed they were slaves under Spanish

released from slavery by acts of aggression against their owners any more

slave becomes free in Pennsylvania who forcibly escapes from Virginia?

If the Africans were slaves by the laws of Spain, now that is the very issue.

The structure...

of my argument will be perfectly clear and comprehensible, needing no

division between distinct points, but admitting to the steady and

undeviating pursuit of one fundamental principle, the administration

of justice.

I am aware that justice is always the duty of the court.

But in this case, I must invite special attention to justice because an

immense array of power, the executive administration instigated by a minister

from a foreign country, has been brought to bear on the side of injustice.

I shall commence with the review of the correspondence.

Where is the correspondence?

The correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Spanish Ministers

Calderon and Arguez. Mr. Adams, it is 3 .30.

To give your argument continuity and as you request justice, we will postpone

further hearing of it until tomorrow morning.

The court is adjourned.

unfortunate circumstance, Mr. Adams.

I know what the waiting and delay have already cost you.

Time is a gift, not an expense.

I shall use it.

I have found my skeleton, Mr. Baldwin.

All these books, all these papers, all these learned thoughts and opinions,

all come down to one word.

Justice.

May it please your honors.

On the 7th of February, 1804, now more than

37 years past, my name was entered and yet stands recorded

on both the rolls as one of the attorneys and counselors of this court.

Very shortly afterwards, I was sent to the dispatch of other duties.

First in distant lands and in later years within our own country, but in

different parts of her government.

Little did I imagine that I would ever again be required to

claim the right to act in the capacity of an officer of this court.

But such has been the...

dictate my destiny.

And I appear again to plead

the cause of justice and now of liberty

and life in behalf of many of my fellow men.

And before the same court.

But not before the same judges.

Nor aided by the same associates.

Nor resisted by the same opponents.

As I cast my eyes along these seats of honor and public trust

now occupied by you.

They seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose

indulgence... Listen then to my voice.

Marshall.

Cushing.

Chase.

Washington.

Johnson.

Livingston.

are they alas where is one of the very

judges of this court before whom I commenced this anxious argument even now

prematurely closed

Gone from the services which in their day and generation they faithfully

rendered to their country.

Gone to receive the rewards of blessedness on high.

In taking, then, my final leave of this bar and of this

honorable court.

I can only offer a fervent petition to heaven that every member

of it may go to his final account with as little of earthly

frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead.

And that you may, every one, after the close of a long

and virtuous career in this world be received at the portals of the next with

the approving sentence well done

good and faithful servant

enter thou

Mr. Baldwin writes again from New Haven.

Glorious, he says.

Glorious not only as a triumph of humanity and justice, but as a

our national character from reproach and dishonor.

Still nothing from Mr. Tappan. Oh, yes, yes, finally.

Mr. Tappan sends an expression of thanks for valuable services gratuitously

rendered in rescuing the lives and liberties of our humble clients.

He is very formal.

I think he's been waiting for me to send him a bill.

Since I have not done so, he is too moved to be less formal.

Perhaps now that this greatest ordeal is past, you will give us peace by finding

it yourself.

Mr. Tappan beseeches me to be not weary in well -doing. Yes, well, to come out

openly and join the cause of God and man to let the world... see that I favor

the great objects of anti -slavery, petitions, as well as the right of

itself.

Yes, well, there's nothing more I can do.

My drowsy brain.

My faculties falling from me, one by one, the teeth dropping from my head.

Then may God grant us peace and quiet.

There is an alliance between southern slave traders and northern Democrats to

stop me.

But I shall proceed until slave traders, slave holders,

slave breeders quail and howl.

I see where the shoe pinches.

It will pinch more yet.

I shall deal out a diet that the gentleman will find hard to digest.

I demand, Mr. Speaker, that you put him down.

Mr. Adams.

I promised yesterday to deliver some petitions that would set them ablaze.

I shall now proceed to do so.

From the citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts. I demand that

you shut the mouth of that old harlequin.

A petition to dissolve the union.

A petition from Benjamin Emerson and 45

other citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying that Congress

adopt measures to dissolve the union of these states.

representative of mass... First, because 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 costs of another section without

adequate return.

Third, Mr.

Speaker, The madman from Massachusetts is still on the rampage.

Even his staunchest opponents never dreamed he would go so far as to present

petition for the dissolution of the Union.

I move that this document be referred to a select committee with instructions to

provide an answer to the petitioners explaining why their prayer ought not to

granted. Would it be in order to burn the petition in the presence of the

I move that the petition be laid on the table and printed, that the country may

know and understand what its character is. Mr. Speaker, is it in order to move

to censure any member presenting such a petition?

Good! I move we adjourn. I'm begging the motion for adjournment. I hope the

House does not adjourn. If there is to be a vote of censure, the House might as

well settle it now as adjourned.

Resolved.

that in presenting to the consideration of this house a petition for the

dissolution of the union, the member from Massachusetts has justly incurred

censure of this house.

Mr. Speaker, is such a motion in order?

I do not feel at liberty to arrest the proceeding.

Resolve, therefore, that the Honorable John Q. Adams has offered the deepest

indignity to the house in which he is a member, and hence so.

to the people of the United States and will, if this outrage be permitted to

pass unrebuked and unpunished, have disgraced his country through their

representatives in the eyes of the whole world.

Resolve further that the aforesaid John Q. Adams might well be held to merit

expulsion from the national councils and the House deem it an act of grace

and mercy.

when they only inflict upon him their severe censure for conduct so utterly

unworthy of his past relations to the state and his present position.

This they hereby do for the maintenance of their own purity and dignity.

Now may I accompany my remarks with a... May I

accompany my resolution with a few remarks?

Certainly, certainly.

You may, Mr. Marshall.

I'm aware to what I expose myself when I submit these resolutions, but the

gentleman from Massachusetts has done nothing less than invite members of this

house to commit high treason when he submitted a petition

for the dissolution of the union.

Sir.

What is high treason?

The Constitution of the United States says what high treason is.

It is not for the gentleman from Kentucky or his puny mind to define what

treason is and confound it with what I have done.

Now, understand, I have nothing but the warmest personal feelings for Mr.

Marshall. I respect his talents.

I hope he succeeds in rescuing himself with the help of his friends from the

vice of drunkenness.

But where did he learn his law?

If there is a principle sacred on earth and established by the Declaration

of Independence, it is the right of the people to alter, to change,

to destroy the government.

if it becomes oppressive to them.

I rest the petition of the 45 citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the

Declaration of Independence.

I can say, and I do say, that it is not

yet time to do this.

are the means to be tried.

I say if the petition is referred and answered, it will satisfy the

petitioners. They will see that there are other measures to be pursued.

And the first of all is to restore the right of petition. Mr. Speaker,

is the gentleman from Massachusetts to be allowed to continue?

There is a resolution before this house.

If it is the intention of the house to proceed, then I must submit.

Was there ever a time that to a man on whom such

charges have been brought of a sudden and totally unexpected, no time given

for his defense?

There is a plaintive tone in Mr. Adams' voice.

Perhaps considering his age. Give up!

I am ready for another hate.

I challenge my accusers to come on against me.

If they say they will try me, they must try me.

If they say they will punish me, they must punish me.

If they say that out of grace and mercy, they will spare me expulsion,

I disdain and cast their mercy away.

I ask them if they will come to such a trial and expel me.

I defy them.

If you wish, Mr. Adams, you can submit a motion for further time for your

defense.

To open my defense, I ask the clerk to read the Declaration of Independence.

Oh, no.

When in the course of human events, it

becomes necessary... Mr. Speaker!

and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to

which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to

the opinions of mankind requires that nature declare the causes which impel

to do so. In the twelve days that I have been standing here before you facing

Mr. Gilmer and Mr.

Marshall and my other opponents, the House cannot be unaware of the interest,

These proceedings have excited throughout the State of the Union.

The letters that are pouring in against this attempt to silence me,

the newspapers that have risen up in arms and proclaimed mine a definitive

case for constitutional rights.

On this twelfth day of my ordeal, Mr.

Gilmer, Mr. Marshall, have offered to withdraw their

resolution of censure if I would withdraw the petition from the 45

citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

My answer to that is no.

No!

That I cannot do.

If I were to withdraw the petition, I would feel myself as having sacrificed

the right of petition, as having sacrificed the right of habeas corpus,

of having sacrificed the right of trial by jury, of having sacrificed the

sacred confidence of the post office, as having sacrificed the freedom of the

press, as having sacrificed the freedom of speech.

as having sacrificed every element of liberty now enjoyed by my fellow

If I were to prove craven to my trust under intimidation

of these charges, never more would the House see a petition of the people

of the Union expressing their grievances.

There is the deadly character of this attempt to put me down.

But if I continue, it will take me at least one more week to complete my

defense.

Mr.

Speaker?

Therefore, since Mr.

Gilmer and Mr. Marshall...

will not withdraw their resolution of censure, and I certainly won't withdraw

petition.

If, however, the House is ready to lay the whole matter of my

censure on the table forever, then I will

acquiesce in that decision.

Mr. Speaker, I move the whole matter of censure be laid on the table forever.

Second the motion. It is with relief that we hear the motion of the gentleman

from Virginia to lay the matter of censure on the table and the generous

acquiescence of the gentleman from Massachusetts. It is not generosity at

Mr. Speaker. I am simply determined not to be responsible for one hour of time

unnecessarily consumed on this subject.

Especially since...

At the end of the vote, I have 200 accumulated petitions which I propose to

present to this House.

Mr.

Speaker! Mr.

Speaker!

Yes, Mr.

Speaker, there is a resolution...

Oh, Mr. Adams.

Always the first to take your seat.

Or do you never go home?

There is to be a resolution on the floor this morning tendering the thanks of

Congress to generals of the late Mexican campaign.

Thanks?

I'm going to be here in plenty of time to vote against it.

Do you never sleep?

No, sir. I am deceased.

At your young age.

I'm 80.

Yes, and indestructible.

See how well you came through your stroke last year?

I didn't come through it at all.

I date my decease from that hour.

So do you.

So does everyone else.

They'd conduct me to my seat, given the chance.

Which is why I get here early.

To love with them.

They don't attack me anymore. They think they're being kind and respectful.

when they refuse to bait me.

I'm good for nothing but autographing verse.

Verse, Mr. Adams?

How many times have you entered this hall, Mr. Fisher?

I don't know.

Hundreds, I suppose.

Have you ever looked, really looked, at the muse of history over the front door?

But perched in her car?

Yes, of course I have. She has both wheels and wings.

Muse, quit thy car, come down upon the floor, and with thee bring that volume

thy hand.

Wrap with thy marble knuckle at the door, and take at a reporter's desk thy

stand. Send round thy album and collect a store of autographs from rulers of the

land.

Invite each Solan to inscribe his name.

a self -recorded candidate for fame.

which prompted this band of heroes to press forward into the heart of the

enemy's country, overcoming every obstacle, scattering the armies of

Mr. Speaker!

Mr.

Adams is dying!

Forgive me, Mrs. Adams.

I cannot believe the message I received is correct.

I should not be here.

Thank you for coming, Mr. Clay. Mr.

Adams asked to see you.

my things to the offices of

the house.

This is the end.