Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/292

 240 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS the first to enunciate the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln afterward rested his great proclamation of emancipation. In a speech in congress in 1836 he said: &quot;From the instant that your slave-holding states become the theatre of war civil, servile, or foreign from that instant the war powers of the constitution extend to interference with the insti tution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with.&quot; As this principle was attacked by the southern members, Mr. Adams from time to time reiterated it, especially in his speech of April 14, 1842, on the question of war with England and Mexico, when he said: &quot;Whether the war be civil, servile, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations : I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the states where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army unquestion ably has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves.&quot; After the rescinding of the gag-rule Mr. Adams spoke less frequently. In November, 1846, he sus tained a shock of paralysis, which incapacitated him for several weeks, and from the effect of which he never altogether recovered. On February 21, 1848, while he was sitting in the house of representatives,