The position taken by Mr. Adams, in presenting these petitions, was evidently misunderstood by many, and especially by Abolitionists.  They construed it into a disposition on his part to sanction, or at least to succumb unresistingly, to the inhumanity and enormity of the slave institution.  In this conclusion they signally erred.  Mr. Adams, by birth, education, all the associations of his life, and the fixed principles of his moral and political character, was an opposer of slavery in every form.  No man felt more keenly the wretched absurdity of professing to base our Government on the “self-evident truth, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—­of proclaiming our Union the abode of liberty, the “home of the free,” the asylum of the oppressed—­while holding in our midst millions of fellow-beings manacled in hopeless bondage!  No man was more anxious to correct this disgraceful misnomer, and wipe away its dark stain from our national escutcheon at the earliest practicable moment.  But he was a statesman of profound knowledge and far-reaching sagacity.  He possessed the rare quality of being able to “bide his time” in all enterprizes.  Great as he felt the enormity of American slavery to be, he would not, in seeking to remove it, select a time so unseasonable, and adopt measures so unwise, as would result, Samson-like, in removing the pillars of our great political fabric, and crushing the glorious Union, formed by the wisdom and cemented by the blood of our Revolutionary Fathers, into a mass of ruins.

Believing there was a time to withhold and a time to strike, he would patiently wait until the sentiment of the American people became sufficiently ripened, under the increasing light and liberality of the age, to permit slavery to be lawfully and peaceably removed, while the Union should remain unweakened and untouched—­the pride of our hearts, the admiration of the world.  Hence, in his early career, he saw no propitious moment for such a work.  While discharging the duties of U. S. Senator, Secretary of State, and President, an attempt in that direction would have resulted in an aggravation of the evils of slavery, and a strengthening of the institution.  Nor on first entering Congress did he conceive the time to be fully come to engage in that agitation of the momentous subject, which, when once commenced in earnest, would never cease until either slavery would be abolished, as far as Congress possessed constitutional power, or the Union become rent in twain!  But he evidently saw that time was at hand—­even at the door—­and he prepared himself for the contest.