Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/558

 said, when the secretary denied it, he would undertake to prove his statement. If there were to be any charges for high treason, the secretary of the navy should be put on his trial."

Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, spoke at length in opposition to the resolutions, and in defense of Mr. Adams. "He could have no possible motive for desiring the dissolution of the Union. He had presented this petition, because he wanted, as the last and most glorious act of a long life, to send forth, in these times of general confusion and political degeneracy, a paper with healing in its wings — a report adverse to the prayer of the petition, and which should state, in a luminous and convincing manner, all the strong arguments in favor of union. He would like to see such a paper from the able pen of that venerable patriot. It would dissipate all doubts as to the purity and patriotism of its author.

"But for the crime of presenting a petition with such an object in view, the house was to put on record against him a charge of aiding in high treason, and in suborning the members of that house to the commission of perjury; and he was to consider it as a great favor that the house did not expel him, but contented itself with giving him a reprimand. Mr. Arnold should like to witness the spectacle. He should like to see that gentleman standing at the liar, with his palsied hand, his bare head, and whitened locks, to be rebuked by the speaker, comparatively a mere boy, after having been visited with the vituperation and vindictive persecution of another, as much a boy in comparison. What a spectacle! Mr. Arnold turned from the thought with loathing and disgust, and so would the nation. So far from helping the cause of the south, it would kindle up against her a blaze high as the very heavens. He was against it — utterly and totally against it — from principle and from policy too."

Mr. Adams demanded that before the house came to the conclusion on the motives assumed in this charge, they should send him out to be tried before a tribunal of the country. Then he should have the benefit secured by the constitution. And he wanted, in that case, to have two or three calls made on the departments for information necessary for his defense; and for this purpose he sent several resolutions to the chair. The first of these resolutions requested the president to communicate copies of the correspondence relating to an act of South Carolina directing the imprisonment of colored persons arriving from abroad in the ports of that state; also, copies of the act or acts, and of any official opinions given by judge Johnson of the unconstitutionality of the said acts. [The act here referred to, subjects any colored person landing from a vessel in any port of South Carolina, to be arrested and imprisoned, and in case of inability to pay the costs incurred by such imprisonment, to be sold for the same as a slave.] One of the other resolutions called for a copy of any letter or letters from the president to a certain member of the house, relating to the rule of the house excluding from reception anti-slavery petitions, or to any agency of the said member in introducing the rule The first two resolutions, after considerable further debate, were adopted Upon the two relating to the "21st rule," the vote was not then taken