Who was bold enough to provoke them, and bring the execration of the nation down upon his own head?
Who would do this, when even abolitionists themselves, rendered implacable by the manifestation of those sentiments of justice and moderation, without which the most humane cause, depending on a change of public opinion, cannot be conducted safely to a prosperous end, were ready to betray their own champion into the hands of the avenger?
That leader was found in the person of John Quincy Adams.

He took his seat in the House of Representatives in 1831, without assumption or ostentation.

Abolitionists placed in his hand petitions for the suppression of slavery in the District of Columbia, the seat of the federal authorities.

He offered them to the House of Representatives, and they were rejected with contumely and scorn.

Suddenly the alarm went forth, that the aged and venerable servant was retaliating upon his country by instigating a servile war, that such a war must be avoided, eyen at the cost of sacrificing the freedom of petition and the freedom of debate, and that if the free States would not consent to make that sacrifice, then the Union should be dissolved.