The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1870-03-10
speech of John quincy Adams.
now THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WILL YET
SAVE THE COUNTRY.
Correspondence of the World
BOsroE. February %.

The Constitutional Club, last evening, cee- |
braIed its sixth anniversary, at the United |
States Hotel, and seldom if ever, has there
been in Boston a better banquet, or four /
hours of keener enjoyment. Over hundred !
members were present. including John Quin- |!
cy Adams, George Lunt. and Mayor Shurt- |
lift. The following is the
SPEECH OF HON. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
With the war of secession, gentlemen, We
have no occasion to deal. 1t has passed into
history. But there is ere result of it with
which it is pre>eminently necessary that we
should deal. At that time, when the can
non were fred at Fort Sumpter, the people
of the North ''as one man" f1ocked to the
capital to deferd the Constitution and the
Union. That was the impulse which car
ried them through in the FIRST place. They
focked into the Capitol forgetting for a time
all constitutional rights, all the original pur-
poses for which the building had been erect
ed not unuaturally, gentlemen, they turned
it into purposes of fortress and defence.
They called upon the war power of the Con-
stitution, and they said, $50 long as this in
surrection exists we will use the Constitution,
we will use the Capitol as fortress and
from it shall issue the great prerogative of
government until this thing has passed away
from u.s." After the arms had been laid
down, long after the angry and warlike peo-
pie who took up those arms had surrendered,
and agreed that they were beaten, had said
there should be no more war, the politicians
| of party in this country took possession
| of that citadel of our freedom, and have
abused it from that day to this, not as de-
fence of the constitution but as a simple
emolument for their own advantages
| What has been tie result Where do we
stand to-day I mean to say, and l say it
| with sense of responsibility, that to day
there is nothing of the old Constitution of
our fathers left to US except what was al
ways understood and believed by them to be
a mere incident OF constitutional power, and
that is the war power. (Applause. j That
| is what we are living under. THAI is the
! thing under which the present Constitution
| of the United States has been built, for do
not imagine for moment, when | speak of
| the Constitution of the United States, that
design to be understood as speaking of the
| Constitution our fathers left to us-by no
manner of means. The old constitutional
edifce of the fathers was built of the white
marble of the States, which they brought
together voluntarily as a work of love, and
piled up there one by one each in pride and
| delight, adding stone after stone to the beau
tifu and symmetrical edfce under which
we all live. [Applause.) But what is this
thing which now we see there in Washing
ton ? Is that built of those stones ? Is that
put together by any such bands as those
which cemented the old Capitol? Why,
gentlemen, it is built of the volcanic lava,
hot yet from the results Of the outpouring
of the mount (applause), and it is clamped
together by great bands of black, rusted,
ilon fetters. (Applause.) It's no such ed
ifce at all and now we have in the Presi-
dental chair a man who, when he swears to
! apI IafapA nd fho
tuition, seems to think that this is the Con-
sttution which he swears to preserve. Now,
my friends, what is the course for US to pur-
sue? What are we to do in the face of the
fact that we see despatch coming over the
wires from the State of Georgia, which, even
under Radical ideas, has been long ago in
the Union, saying that the Legislature has
met, and that certain gentlemen have been
turned out of their seats for disability, GER
tain others for being illegally elected, and
certain others for certain other things too
numerous to mentions Why, gentlemen.
why2 Because the people of the State of
Georgia believe they ought not to be there
Because the members of their own body have
passed upon that question, and decided that
they were not legally elected Why, gen.
tlemen, you are old-fashioned You are go
ing back to the early days of the republic
No. Because Alfred J. Terry, Maj1r-Gen-
eral, gays they shan't so into the Legislature
(Applause) That, gentlemen, is the Con-
stitution under which we live. What, as
said before. is the policy to be pursued 1t
seems to me. / confess, that there is but one.
don't know what the other gentlemen may
think. but after carefully covering the whole
ground as well as we could, l am pursuaded
that there is no hope in the men who have
done these things, no hope whatever. They
have actually brought things 10 such pass
that it is now good constitutional law that
State may be dragooned in amending the
Constitution of the United States. A State
may be required by the force of the bayo-
net, or by such other forces as they may
please to exert, to give its free consent
(Laughter.) Gentlemen, the other day,
there was proposition made in our Legis-
lature by very admirable gentleman, a
colored gentleman by the name of Ruffian,
to fire a hundred guns on the Common in
honor of the passage of the fifteenth amend
| ment. The fifteenth amendment is about
to be proclaimed by the President of the
United States as part of its Constitution.
was only sorry that ! was not in the Leg
islature to propose an amendment to it,
that the United States be humbly solicited
, to allow the State of Massachusetts 70 fire
| that salute from Fort Warren, and that the
/ guns might be shotted in order to show the
process by which the amendment had been
carried. Cloud and continued applause. }
1t has occurred to me, having no confidence
that the dominant party will ever amend
, their ways. that there is bat one way out of
, our difficulties. The difficulty now is not
TO defend the Constitution of the United
States We are not placed in the positions
of Andrew jackson and Daniel Webster.
,, We have got to reinstate the Constitution of
the United States. (Applause) And, gen
tlemen, we have no bold leader like Andrew
Jackson; we have no gigantic pleader like
Daniel Webster to lead us in these days.
We can rely only upon ourselves. the rank
and file, the men who are here before me and
others like them. You remember the great
IL L