This is his first major novel forthcoming based don years of research and he takes you to the east coast industrial to protect our property this great pages turning fiction is the the interesting history function with the historical character. Host those are some of the books harriet out coming now. His controversial views on slavery. James traub from the New York Times magazine, and is a regular columnist for foreign policy. Com. His books include the best intentions, kofi annan and the u. N. The devils playgrnd, century of pleasure and profit in times square. City on a hill. And the freedom agenda. In his review of John Quincy Adams spirit, sean, author of the rise of american democracy jefferson to lincoln wrote james traubs new biography of john quince ad dams is especially strong. Adams is a complicate hero, a and a spirit. And slaverys greatest enemy in american politics. Traub does justice to both the man and his times but the historians sense of complexity and a writers eye for drama and key tail. After his talk and question and answer, assuming we have time, mr. Traub will be signing copies of this book, one level up, outside the National Archives store. Please welcome james traub to National Archives. [applause] thank you very much for that introduction. So, when i was coming here this morning, i was taking a taxi to penn station, new york. Every bus i passed had a giant sign on the side that said hamilton and so naturally i thought, what if mirandas a producer came to me and said, ive done the hamilton hiphop thing. What you got for me with John Quincy Adams . So i thought i need to have a story to tell him. So, this is the first book event i have done, so this is the story i would tell him if he ever came to me to ask. So, saturday, january 21, 1842, John Quincy Adams, then 74 years old, the former president of the United States, the former secretary of state, the former senator and diplomat, and now a member of the u. S. House of representatives from massachusetts, decided the provoke a confrontation with the slaveholders who dominated the congress. The previous seven years adams a waged a lonely and often sol at the struggle to protect the right of citizens to Petition Congress for an end to slavery or to the slave trade. That right guaranteed by the constitution, but slaveholds resolutely unwilling to allow the peculiar institution to become a matter of public debate, passed what was known as the gag order to prevent such petitions from being presented. Every year, adams, and a few others, had presented such petitions, and every year the slaveholders and allies among the treat states passed a new gag order. Once again in december, 1841 the dag had been passed. Once again, adams insisted on testing it by bringing one petition after another to the floor of the house, under the pretext they did not technically fall within the compass of the gag order. So on the 21st he presented a particularly exacerbating sump petition. The slaveholders finally lost all patience. The abolitionist, Theodore Dwight weld, wrote to his wife, who described the scene. Ill new read an excerpt. Weld rites would is the virginia, bv johnson of maryland and scores more slaveholders, striving constantly to stop him by starting questions of order and every now and then screaming at the top of their voices. That is false. I demand mr. Speaker that you put him down. What are we to sit here and endure such insults . I deplanned you shut them out. That demand that you shut them out. A perfect uproar would bust fort when mr. A with his bold surgery would slice his cleave into the very bones. At least half of the slaveholding members of the house left their seats and gathered in the hall where mr. A stood. Anybody broke on million, mr. A would say, where the shoe pinches it will oh, deal out to the gentleman, find it hard to digest. If before i get through if a slaveholder, slave trader and slave breeder on this floor does not get materials for bitter reflection it shall be no fault of mine. On monday, january 23rd, adams picked up where he left off. Again, one antislavery petition after another. This time the speaker ordered him to stop. Adams refused. Kept on, hours on end. His few allies, including the antislavery champion, joshua diddings of ohio, gathered by his side. Leader of the slave faction hovered nearby lest the miss a word of the old mans voice. Now, adams pulled another page from a sheaf of papers he held close to his chest. He turned to the speaker, and said the following i hold in my hand the memorial of Benjamin Emerson and 45 other citizens in the state of massachusetts, praying congress to adopt the immediate measure for the peaceful dissolution of east massachusetts. The petitioners no longer wish to see the resources of the for the benefit of slaves. Well, the slaveocracy, which adam used to describe the people, hat been waiting for the prove provocation. Henry wise of virginia rose to propose a resolution to censure the former president , very creative punishment. Adams replied. Good. Think about that word. He said, good. Wasnt thinking about trial. He wasnt thinking of let me back up and little bit and explain how adams had come to this point in his quite extraordinary career. So, like virtually all new englanders, adams profoundly opposed slavery, considered its gross violation both of American Public principles and christian principles as well and also considered slavery to be in effect a settled the constitution was a wish. Potentially nothing that the federal government could do or from adams point of view, should do about slavery. His views only began to change in 1820. 1820 was the era of what we now call the missouri compromise. Happened then was there were then 22 states, 11 free and 11 slaves, and missouri petitioning entrance into the union as a slave state and that would create a balance. And missouri was Strong Enough north and there was a strong case to be made took a walk down pennsylvania avenue, probably john calhoun, the secretary of war. John calhoun would become the great intellectual testifier on slavery. And adams had a lot of regard for calhoun, and calhoun considered considered him to be a personal of integrity. And adams continued to talk, and calhoun listened and said we know those are very noble principles but where i come from we think those principles only apply to white people, not our people. Adams went home that night. He kept a diary every day of his life. Quite extraordinary. A great resource. And he would write down, sometimes almost verbatim, conversation he that that day if he thought they were important. So he went back home. At some point began to write, and he was thinking about a fact, map as gifted as calhoun could hold views that adam found re pellant and at least to himself false. There was a larger truth in this. One that had not presented itself to adams until now. Transcribing his train of thought it came to him adams thought the practice of slavery the very sources of moral principle and converts human reason and reduces men endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the christian religion elm impression on my mind by the is that the bargain between freedom and slavery contained in the constitution of the United States morally, politically, changed. This is an astonishing conclusion. For a man who had been raised from the earliest moment of consciousness to regard union as the supreme good, who had devoted his career as a diplomat and politician, defending the integrity of the United States against foreign and domestickic threat. Adam reasoned himself into a position that was too honest to reason himself out of. Later that year, as the negotiations over the missouri the state Legislature Passed a law that banned people of color from the state. Literally said, even if youre free youre not coming into the state. This enraged adams. I think maybe he kind of burst the last holding in his deepest thought if saw this as a provocation to the prestates, of course, but also to the very cause of human freedom, and of a colleague came to talk about it and adams in his diary records what he said to this man, and i will just read you a little piece of this. Quite astonishing. So, thinking about the slaves, and indeed thinking about not just enslavement but racism, the way that a man from his place he didnt know black people. The only ones he knew were servant it but there was a sympathy, understood. This is what he wrote meek and defenseless as they are so much the more sacred is the obligation of the legislatures of the states to which they belonged to defend their lawful rights. Now, would defend, should the dissolution of the union be a consequence for it would not be the defense but the violation of their rights to which all the consequences would be imputable, and if the dissolution of the union must come, that it comes no other cause than this. If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of the union, the same sword will cut asunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dissolution for the cause of slavery would be followed by a war in the slaveholding states, combined with a war between the two severed portions of the union. Seems to me that its result must be the removal of slavery, and calamitous this must be, so glorious would the final issue that as god shall knowledge shall judge me should not be denied. That was adams writing to himself. And indeed, as for the remainder of his tenure as secretary of state, as president , said nothing about slavery. Either in his diary or to others, it was a buried issue, that obviously remained inside him but not the focus of his career. So, after he was beaten for reelection by Andrew Jackson in 1828 and returned home, he then went back to congress in 1831. It was the first president to ever return to congress, and he remains to this day the only president to have served in the house of representatives after presidency. By now, an Antislavery Movement had gun in the United States. By 1835 activists had begun preparing and sending to the very few sympathetic congressmen, petitions calling for a end to the slave trade, and and the district of columbia over which the federal government had jurisdiction. Thats when the governors adams was too harsh a realist to believe that in an open, public debate, southerners would acknowledge the evil of slavery and agree its abolition. He did not think that was responsible said to himself, that only civil war would be an end to slavery. Now when it was a reality, could not say out loud what he said to himself. Could not bring him to say that the idea of civil war was acceptable, something which only the most extreme abolitionists would adopt. So he was in a quandary. He didnt have doubts about the merits at question. Didnt know how to get there he didnt know what he as a congressman could do. I think he thought that the petition issue was a way to force into public debate the questions of slavery and, therefore, at least exposed to the full horror of the practice. I dont think he thought that would insulate i think he thought it was the best he could do. But beyond that, adam was what we would now call a First Amendment absolutist, and that question for him took the form of petitions. Now, it was not easy for us to understand now why petitions would matter so much. At that time there were no lobbys special Interest Groups or writein campaigns, obviously no internet, no way that citizens could have their voices heard except through the act of voting. Petitions were the way they could do that. And in adams own mind the word petition had additional res naps. Even the most humble servant can petition. How can you deny a citizen of a democracy the right to a petition . So for adams these two issues, the issue of petition and free speech and the issue of slavery converged to make this a thing so powerful that it seized him, really in his time in congress, and from that time forward this became adams on expression he was prepared to stand up when nobody else was. Indeed, its worth saying that many other men who shared adams views felt that it was foolish, reckless, to wage a battle over this issue in congress because you would never succeed. Congress was really dominated by slaveholders, thanks in part to the compromise in the constitution. Talking about slavery would have gummed up the works of congress so other people wouldnt do it. Adams said, i dont care. Ill do it by myself. And so in every new session, adams would send in a petition, southerners would vote for the gag order, adams would try to get around it. A fight would ensue, until in 1837, adams presented a petition that purported to come from slaves themselves which was an unspeakable violation from the point of view of the slave owners. The idea that slaves might have the opportunity to write to Petition Congress. If they had that right, what other rights might they have . The fact of the petition was a fraud, adams knew it was a fraud. Probably sent to set him up. And not only that, the petition didnt call for the end of slavery. It was the opposite. The petition from these at slaves called for the preservation of slavery because slaved liked slavery if thats what be petition said. But adams didnt reveal that when he presented the petition. This is back in 1837. So all the other congressmen knew he was presenting a petition from slaves presuming demanding an end to slavery. So adams defend is this thing if said, of course, he said i would present a petition from a horse or dog if it had the power of speech and writing. This was the first confrontation. This provoked the first attempt to censure adams, which i wont describe but went on for several weeks. Adam dominated the debate, decimated the opposition, and by the time he was done, only 22 of the 238 members in the house voted for censure. Now we come forward five years when the memory of that humiliation, perhaps, had faded. Until by this time there is a sizable abolitionist movement, and there are other abolitionists or antislavery legislators in congress. So this group, activists, congressmen, all roomed together in one rooming house, call abolition house. Theater wells, a great writer and essayist, took a desk in the library of congress. Others the printing and distribution of accept slavery but adams whats leader of the group in congress. Nobody questioned that. He said to weld that he would present a petition that would set the slaveholders in a blaze. That is what he did. On january 21, 1842. Now, of course this southerners had also learned their mistake five years ago. This time they said, lets appoint a chief prosecutor, and so they chose thomas marshall. Tom mar ha marshall was the nephew of john marshall, the Great Supreme Court chief justice. Also a highly regarded lawyer, orator, moderate, member of the whig party. So it wouldnt see like slavery against antislavery. So, several days later, probably january 25th, marshall began to it was astonishing. This event. Crowds filled the gallery of the house long before the noon opening. Foreign ministers, attaches people were in the outer space and halls. He called on marshall, who read a resolution to censure adams. His version, though, he raised the stakes considerably, whereas, he asserted, a dissolution of the union necessarily implies the destruction of the constitution, the overthrow of the republican and the violation of the legislators own oath, the petition adams had presented compelled the members to perjure themselves and involve he crime youve high taken. Adams deserved expulsion. Censure was an act of mercy. A catastrophic overreach on marshalls part. Marshall delivered an indictment, with long preparation of regards for adams and his family and place in hoyt. He professed hemps astounded when such a revered figure presented to the house so monstrous a document and not only presented the document but fought to have it referred to committee. Thus leading to the conclusion that at the dissolution of the unionas a fair subject to be considered by the house. Marshalls profession of neutrality and his rhetorical command has cheered his colleagues and left adams supporters oppressed to a corresponding degree. Both sides waited in anticipation for the old mans response. With all eyes on him, adams rose slowly, looking about him at friend and foe, and at last said it is no part of my intent to reply to the gentleman. That went startling. There was con contention. I call for the reading of the first paragraph of the declaration of independence. Of course, when in the course of human events he slowed up certain where to stop, adams cried proceed. Proceed. So he continued. Whenever any form of government becomes destruct of those ends it this right of the people to call for abolishment. And then, at adams order, came to a stop at it there right, it is their duty to throw off oppression. John quincy adams father played a central role in writing the declaration of independence. John quincy was alive at the time. His adversary, thomas marshall, was a young pup of 40. Adams was reminding his audience, which had come to see him as fanatic and a mono maniac, of his own connection donations founding documents and principles. And more than that, just what those principles were. Went on to advocate the dissolution of the government, never mind the decoration had been written to call for the dissolution of the dominion. The real opinion came from slaveholders there was a concerted system and purpose to destroy all the principles of civil liberty in the free states. Lack of habeas corpus, trial by jury. So, was the right of petition. Weld admittedly the most biased wrote that nester demonstrated majesty that furnished the highest illustration of the moral sublime i ever witnessed. Now, henry wise rose to deliver a rebuttal. Wise was an didnt have marshalls degree of restraint and delivered a firey, blistering, ugly on adams personally, on adams father,. Adams kept his cool. So, when adams finally rose to speak, a very ingenious argument about virginia, where henry wise was from, which was often designed again to remind everyone who john quinceyed a dam one. Grieved hem to theaceae soul to see this petitions from from virginia there was state that even now he felt an attachment greater to nye except his native state. In his earlier years it was from virginia that he was introduced in the service of his nation, first by george washington. Woes whose warping voice has been repieced their operate against him and which voice had been to him, from the time it was delivered down to this moment, next to the holy scriptures on his part. Then adams turned back on marshall. Im sorry, thomas marshall. Now he exchanged dignified the constitution of the United States, he observed, says what high treason is and is it not for him or mine to define what high treason is and confound it with what i have done. Some assaulted that marshall attend some law school in order to learn the requirements of citizens of the citizens of the states and members of house. Did he not understand that treason and perjury were crimes rather than simply censurable offenses and any man accused of them had the right to trial before an impartial jury . A jury of slaveholders impartial . Adams was beating the south yet again, this time the whole world watching. That night, weld came to visit adam at home and found him as fresh as a boy, though he had not slept for days. Adams began reciting his speech for the next die, including the facial expressions and gestures he would use. Abolitionists tried to warn adams against wasting his energy. The old map was unstoppable weapon went on for an hour, or norly that, weld wrote to this voice his wife in a voice loud enough to be heard by an audience. At this point, southerners began to retreat. Marshall then had actually never meant to charge adams with treason. Wise took the floor and said he never supported the censure resolution. Marshall then turned on wise. For attacking adams. At this point more than a week had gone by. The house had accomplished no business whatsoever. And on february 2, adams rose to say that actually he hadnt yet begun his defense and he would need weeks more to gather documents and testimony. At this point another southern congressman offered to drop the resolution, the censure resolution if adam would with draw the petition. Adamsing dignitily refueled and indignitily refused. Then marshall ran up the white flag after two weeks. He put the resolution to a vote knowing it would lose and it did. Adams response . He immediately introduced 200 antislavery petitions. Adams had shattered overleaning confidence of the south, giddinsgs was overheard said i would rather die a thousand deaths. Marshall retired after that session of congress. Why, later called adam, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery. It was not a merely individual defeat. Weld called then viewer shot censure was the first victory over slaveholders and this is not hyperbole. Thousands at fought a pitched battle two more years would have to pass before the house defeated the gag rule, but as of that moment, Southern Resistance was done. The mistake of the abolitionists, however, was to believe that slavery could not survive a question in the court of public opinion. Weld bode lie predicted from that point slaverys downfall adams knew better. He knew that slave owners would never voluntarily surrender their most precious property and the foundation of their way of life. So, what do we learn about adams in this episode . First, of course, he was fareless. Fearless. He would fight dirty. He was woo be un would be unfair. He could speak in the lot of loftiest register and engage in savage personal attacks. An extraordinarily clearheaded man but with a vehement that brought unbridled ferocity. Thats the meaning of the subtitle of my book. His militant spirit. So these gifts were the ones that were both his great source of achievement and great source of failure. His brilliant insight into men and affairs made him a popular diplomat. His energy made him a great secretary of state, but that same selfreich which isness, that contempt for compromise and the business of politics made him a terrible president. A man who had a very bold agenda and achieved nothing virtually. Presidency was the least successful. He was beaten after one term by Andrew Jackson, who was far more popular and for more skilled at a politician. At that point it seemed that his career was over and yet he had this last extraordinary final phase where he served in congress for the last 16 years of his life. By the time he by the time the gag order was overturned, he was revered as a hero. The man who had been thought of really was revered as the last link to the founders and theyre great virtues. At his death, in 1848, there were of course prim out tremendous outpouring of eulogies and can the most interesting one to me wasnt even a eulogy. It was delivered in a theater. By athlete door parker. Theodore parker was a theologian. Brilliant man. And he allowed him to be very critical of his subject. Shall we tell lies about him because his dead . He asked his audience. Parker northed at secretary of it and president , adams remained mute on slavery him is what is called a good hater, parker rightly noted, and he used his wit, pureness, as a poor poet, his great is intellectual faculty was memory and showed little foresight. What, then, did John Quincy Adams greatness lie . This. That throughout all his words and acts, ran a golden thread, an intense love of freedom, for all men. And then parker summoned up the moment in 1842 when adams stood in the well of the house on the issue of slavery petition and this what he said he said i know a few things in modern times so grand as that old man, standing there in the house of representatives, a man who was born himself proudfully kings courts, early doing service in high places, where honor may be won, man who would fill the highest office in any nations gift, a president s son, a champion of the neediest of the oppressed. And that was John Quincy Adams. Thank you. [applause] if anyone has any questions there are microphones set up on either side. So please go to the microphone and identity be happy to talk about adams, whether its what i was talking about or some other thing all together. Sir . I know that lincoln was one term in the house. Was he in the house at this time . Yes. So, there is a kind of tantalizing they must have known each other. They saw each other. Lincolns first term was adams last term. Lincoln was there when adams died, and when adams casket was taken from washington north on a train to be buried in quincy, massachusetts, an honor guard of two representatives from each state, including lincoln as one of those men. So for those who like to see a fair amount of adams in lincoln, both in some of the arguments lincoln used about slavery and analysis the activist government that adam talked about, that lincoln sought to pass. Yes . How did the media treat all of this . The media of the day. The media of the day. So a great question since the word media obviously our own word, media then in that case meant a there were a fair number of court reporters. By 1840, tens of thousands a number of them, not a lot. I dont know how many had reported in washington, and so this was big news in all of the papers. And for the abolitionist press, by then some number of thousands of abolitionist newspapers i didnt talk about the famous amistad case where adam before the Supreme Court defended a group asking who had been taken slavery and won the case 71. It was very they favorable and my question is, editorially, the media and particularly in some cases im of course curious of the media of the south. The answer is you i should say that i only know what read. Of those, the newspapers were either pro or antislavery, and newspapers in the south despised this man. Adams received innewmannable Death Threats and was hated so the Southern Press would have vilified him. Northern press, cant say. Going back to lincoln. John quincy adam was the first person to develop the used of the justification for the i believe that during the 1830s, as the south started to talk about secession, he warned them if it came to war the north would be able to have a military justification to come in and abolish slavery. Once the south had threatened to leave the union, and the north, if it saw the military value of freeing the slave, the north would have the right to override the restraint on federal conduct written in the constitution. And so adams said that quite explicitly. In late 1830s or early 1840s, and certainly thought that lincoln had adopted that reasoning. So, thats the kind of change. Well, all right, if there are no other questions, then i al very happy to sign books for those of you woohoo who