Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1876-10-11
THE REBEL ELEMENT.
Mr.. Blaine speaks at Cincin
natl, and Tells Some Start
ling Facts,


natl, and Tells Some Start
ling Facts,
Concerning Charles francis
Adams and His Record on
the Slavery Question.
f. CINCINNATI, Ohio, Oct. 2.-In a
speech this evening at political
gathering Mr.. Blaine referred as fol.
lows to the Hon. Charles Francis
Adams: as
observe that some political letters
of tho Hon. Charles Francis Adams,
the democratic candidate for govern
or of Massachusetts,, are being dis
seminated through the Associated
Press, and circulated as campaign
tracts by his brother democrats of the
West. In these letters Mr.. Adams
goes out Of his way quite gratuitous-
ly TO speak Of myself in a tone that
is personally offensive. 1 have neith-
er the time nor desire to exchange
personalities with any one in this
campaign, but there is a very impor-
tant chapter in the life of Mr.. Adams
which at this time should be recalled.
commend the facts which / am
about to set forth to those voters who
may be led by the sound of Mr..
Adams name to give heed to his
counsel. 1 shall speak from the rec
ords and by the record. After the
republican victory OF 1860 which re-
suited in tho election of Abraham
Lincoln to the presidency, Mr.. Adams,
then representative in Congress
from Massachusetts,, sought with all
his influence to deprive the country
of everything that had been gained
in the struggle.
If anything had been settled by
that election it was that slavery sho'd
be put in the course of extinction by
prohibiting its introduction on free
territory, and yet as soon as the
southern democrats i'm Congress be-
gan their threats Of disunion, Mr..
Adams knees smotc with fear, and
his tongue became palsied for any
uttcrancc, except in support Of slav-
cry. His whole course during the
closing session Of the Thirty-sixth
Congress intervening between Mr..
Iincoln's election and his inaugural
ton was one of treason to the cause
of liberty and desertion from the
cause Of the Union. He offered every
humiliating concession to the South,
agreed to abandon the prohibition Of
slavery in the Territories, and, as a
climax to the degrading and dishon-
oring conditions, he offered to amend
the Constitution Of the United States
so as to render the abolition of slay-
cry impossible SO long as a single
slave State should object. The amend
ment so warmly urged by Mr.. Adams
declared in effect that no amendment
to the Constitution in any way inter-
fering with slavery in the States
should ever be even so much as op-
posed except by one of the slave
States, and should not be adopted,
cxcept with the consent of every
slave State. When Arkansas applied
for admission into the Union, with
constitution which forever prohibited
the Legislature from touching slav-
cry, except with the consent of slave.
holders, John Quincy Adams declared
such a provisions to be infamous be-
yond the power of expression, and
yet Charles Francis Adams i'm 1861
offered, argued, and entreated and
pleaded for an amendment to the
Constitution Of the United States
which applied to the whole country a
far more infamous principle than was
contained in the Arkansas constitu-
ton of 1886. Every franchise you
enjoy under the Constitution of the
United States--your right to vote,
your freedom of religious opinion,
your trial by jury, your right even
to representation were left open to
change by the ordinary process Of
amending the Constitution, but Mr..
Adams proposed to give slavery far
more sacred guarantee than had ever
been given to liberty, and to cnshrine
1t as something of superior right,
placing it beyond the power of nlne-
ty-nine hundredths of the people of
the United States to abolish it unless
a slave State should propose it and
every other slave State vote for it.
There is no parallel to this i'm history.
No ukase of Russian despotism in the
darkest days of Romanoff tyranny
ever SO bound its own hands and
placed 1t beyond its own power to do
mercy aud work Righteousness in the
future, as Mr.. Adams proposed to
bind the hands Of tho United States
and deprive our own government for
all time of the power to emancipate a
a single slave SO long rs one slave
State should object. Mr.. Adams has
never forgiven Abraham Lincoln for
defeating this atrocious measure.
Fortunately by Mr.. Lincoln's silent
influence, exertcd from his Illinois
home through Owen Lovejoy, Elihu
WasEburne, and other representative
friends in Congress-, the odious prop
osition was strangled without even
coming to a direct vote, but not until
Mr.. Adams had made an elaborate
plea for it; and years after Mr.. Lin
coin had gone to a martyrs gravc-a
grave bedewcd with the tears Of mill
lions, including those emancipated
negroes whom Mr.. Adams had sought
to keep in eternal bondage-Mr.
Adams took occasion, in q eulogy of
Mr.. Seward. to depreciate and belit-
tie and dishonor the grandest man
that has sat in the presidential chair
since George Washington. Mr..
Adams, in this petty and paltry
course, was seeking an ignoble re-
venge over the dead patriot who,
when living, could never refer to the
constitutional amendment which Mr..
Adams advocated, without chill of
horror. Mr.. Lincoln indeed often de-
clared that no crisis of the war was
so terrible, and no possible issue Of
it so destructive as the proposition Of
Mr.. Adams to found the continuance
of the Union on the remorscless and
hopeless and endless seryitude of an
entire race of men. Mr.. Lincoln did
not believe that God would permit
the pcrpetuity of union founded on
such attrocious wrong and crime. In
Mr.. Adams course toward Mr.. Lin
coin in his grave the friends Of Gov.
Hayes will estimate his criticism Of
that honorcd leader and true man
at precisely its just value, bnt
for the honor of New England 1
desire to say that Of all her represent
atives Mr.. Adams stood alone, l think
in supporting this infamous PROPOSE
ton. Every other Massachusetts, rep
resentative was opposed to it, includ-
ing the Hon. Alex. II. Rice, the pres
ent republican governor of that state,
and candidate for reelection against
Mr.. Adams. Indeed from all New
England, as l have already said, in
that hour of supreme trial, no other
republican proved false to her princi-
Piles and her teachings save only he
whose inheritance should have made
him the foremost defender Of the
right. And after MIR. Adams had
made this fearful offer Of the eternal
permanencc of slavery to the ranting
democratic disunionists of the south,
he snperaddcd to it I'm formal speech
fhp infimaIion that IL II waS not r.