Speaker 1: Hey, listeners, Bob here just a warning that this episode
Speaker 1: contains a brief description of racial violence. If you've got
Speaker 1: kids listening, or you would rather not listen to that,
Speaker 1: you can jump ahead five minutes in the episode. I'm
Speaker 1: Bob Crawford. This is Founding Sun John Quincy's America. The
Speaker 1: sky turned an odd, bluish green that day in late
Speaker 1: August eighteen thirty one, people up and down the Atlantic
Speaker 1: coast stared at the heavens, wondering what it all meant.
Speaker 1: One Virginia preacher had been expecting this sign from God.
Speaker 2: He began having sort of visions, apocalyptic visions which commanded
Speaker 2: him to sort of bring about transformational apocalyptic change.
Speaker 1: Matthew Karp is a professor of history at Princeton University
Speaker 1: an author of This Vast Southern Empire, Slaveholders at the
Speaker 1: Helm of American Foreign Policy. He says the preacher had
Speaker 1: been seeing visions for years, recording them in his diary,
Speaker 1: things like.
Speaker 3: While laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood
Speaker 3: on the corn, representing the figures I'd seen before in
Speaker 3: the heavens.
Speaker 1: The eerie, blue green sky was the final sign that
Speaker 1: the time had come, time for the preacher to set
Speaker 1: his plan in motion, and when the last strands of
Speaker 1: the fantastical colors faded from the night sky, he got
Speaker 1: to work. He gathered six other men and crept through
Speaker 1: the swamps of Southampton County, Virginia, stealing horses, knives, hatchets,
Speaker 1: and axes. Within two days, a group of more than
Speaker 1: seventy had joined the preacher's movement. They went house to house,
Speaker 1: slaughtering every white enslaver they came across, freeing the enslaved
Speaker 1: people as they went. Nat Turner's rebellion had begun. By
Speaker 1: the end of the rebellion, Nat Turner and the other
Speaker 1: enslaved African Americans who joined him had killed some sixty
Speaker 1: white people, including women and children. The backlash was immediate
Speaker 1: and severe. A mob of three thousand white people tracked
Speaker 1: down the rebels just outside of the town of Jerusalem.
Speaker 4: The one thing I want to say about Nat Turner
Speaker 4: is not only did they kill him, they mutilated his body,
Speaker 4: mutilated it.
Speaker 1: Mary Elliott is Curator of American Slavery at the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 4: Just like this idea that if he has one hand
Speaker 4: attached to one arm attached to his body. Somehow it's
Speaker 4: going to rise up and you know, kill more white
Speaker 4: people and end slavery in the nation. And we have
Speaker 4: to tear that body up so that it doesn't come
Speaker 4: back and fight another day.
Speaker 1: In the hysteria that followed Nat Turner's rebellion, paranoia seized
Speaker 1: the South. White Southerners murdered dozens of black men and
Speaker 1: women across the region, most having no connection to the rebellion.
Speaker 1: Enslavers had long feared violent uprisings by the people they enslaved,
Speaker 1: and now their fears had come true.
Speaker 5: Bear in mind that the Nat Turner uprising was one
Speaker 5: of a series of events.
Speaker 1: James Traub is the author of the biography The John
Speaker 1: Quincy Adams Militant Spirit.
Speaker 5: And you have to go all the way back to
Speaker 5: Hades's rebellion against the French. This was a slave rebellion
Speaker 5: which had succeeded against the world's greatest nation and driven
Speaker 5: them out, and so people were terrified. Then there's the
Speaker 5: Denmark Visi uprising in Charleston in eighteen twenty two. So
Speaker 5: all of these things say to the South, our institution
Speaker 5: is under attack.
Speaker 1: A few months after Nat Turner's uprising, sixty four year
Speaker 1: old John Quincy Adams was sworn into office as a
Speaker 1: member of the House of Representatives. Adams reluctantly ran for
Speaker 1: Congress to fix roads, build schools, and protect manufacturing jobs
Speaker 1: for his New England constituents. But he would soon see
Speaker 1: all of his goals upended by the intense response to
Speaker 1: these slaves rebellions and be forced to either come out
Speaker 1: fully against slavery or accept its evils. Chapter three Our
Speaker 1: Federal Union, it must be preserved. In the years leading
Speaker 1: up to Nat Turner's rebellion, the abolitionist movement was gaining momentum.
Speaker 6: It was a very gradualist and moderate movement until the
Speaker 6: eighteen thirties.
Speaker 1: Richard Newman is a professor of history at Rochester Institute
Speaker 1: of Technology. He says black abolitionists like David Walker led
Speaker 1: a new charge for abolition going into the eighteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties.
Speaker 6: David Walker is without a doubt, the most important abolitionist
Speaker 6: figure before Frederick Douglass in the coming of the Civil
Speaker 6: War era, because he rips apart the anti slavery notion
Speaker 6: that you can be a gradual abolitionist and still make
Speaker 6: an impact on the slavery ish in the United States.
Speaker 1: Walker's message was simple. The only remedy for slavery immediate
Speaker 1: abolition and full equality for African Americans.
Speaker 6: The way that I discuss his importance is that he
Speaker 6: represents all of those African American musicians in the nineteen
Speaker 6: forties and fifties and sixties who influenced all of those
Speaker 6: white rock and rollers, you know, including Elvis Presley. You
Speaker 6: can't look at the rise of rock and roll without
Speaker 6: looking at black musicians. You can't look at the rise
Speaker 6: of all these white abolitionists, politicians, and activists in the
Speaker 6: eighteen thirties and forties without looking at the influence of
Speaker 6: David Walker.
Speaker 1: The momentum of the abolitionist movement and the growing frequency
Speaker 1: of slave rebellions set off a frenzy of political action
Speaker 1: in the South. Southern enslavers took the reins of state
Speaker 1: and local governments, writing oppressive laws to prevent the education,
Speaker 1: movement or assembly of enslaved people. In the North, the
Speaker 1: pendulum swung even further in the opposite direction. These draconian
Speaker 1: Southern laws pushed more Northerners from the sidelines and into
Speaker 1: the fight against slavery.
Speaker 7: By the eighteen thirties, the anti slavery movement has taken
Speaker 7: a new turn. It's become something of a mass movement.
Speaker 1: That's Sean Wood Lentz, professor of history at Princeton University
Speaker 1: and author of the Rise of American Democracy, Jefferson to Lincoln.
Speaker 7: One of the things that undertakes is a series of
Speaker 7: petitions to flood the Congress with petitions.
Speaker 1: Anti slavery petitions poured into Congress. I can imagine Southern
Speaker 1: lawmakers using them as fuel for the fireplace or to
Speaker 1: light a cigar. Enter John Quincy Adams stage left. His
Speaker 1: desk is likely covered in anti slavery petitions on his
Speaker 1: first day in office. To be clear, he hated slavery,
Speaker 1: but he didn't consider himself an abolitionist, and he didn't
Speaker 1: believe Congress had the power.
Speaker 3: To abolish slavery.
Speaker 1: Still, it didn't matter to Adams what was in the petitions.
Speaker 1: He saw it as his duty to give voice to
Speaker 1: them on the House floor, whether he agreed with them
Speaker 1: or not. So during his first session, John Quincy cleared
Speaker 1: his throat, stood up from his desk, and read one
Speaker 1: abolitionist petition after another.
Speaker 8: I presented fifteen petitions signed numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania
Speaker 8: praying for the abolition of slavery in the slave trade
Speaker 8: in the District of Columbia. I moved that one of
Speaker 8: the petitions presented by me be read, may be in
Speaker 8: all the same ten and very short. It was a
Speaker 8: quarterly read. I made very few remarks, chiefly to declare
Speaker 8: that I should not support the part of the petition
Speaker 8: which pray paid for the abolition of slavery in the
Speaker 8: District of Columbia.
Speaker 1: John Quincy soon found that slavery permeated every nook and
Speaker 1: cranny of the capital. Southern lawmakers seeking every opportunity to
Speaker 1: solidify the institution into the bedrock of the Republic. Adams
Speaker 1: was chair of the Committee on Manufacturers. While manufacturing might
Speaker 1: not sound like an overtly political issue, it was actually
Speaker 1: at the heart of one of the day's biggest issues,
Speaker 1: something that deeply divided Northern and Southern lawmakers.
Speaker 3: Tariffs.
Speaker 7: It was the one place that the federal government made
Speaker 7: its money. It didn't have an income tax to work
Speaker 7: off of the bates money off of tariffs.
Speaker 1: Just like today, tariffs protect American manufacturers from being undersold
Speaker 1: by foreign goods. But most of this manufacturing was done
Speaker 1: in northern cities, so tariffs helped create jobs for Northerners
Speaker 1: but made foreign imports more expensive for Southerners. However, Sean
Speaker 1: wood Lenz says, the cost of goods wasn't really the issue.
Speaker 7: But it was made into a big deal politically. That
Speaker 7: was a cover. The tariff issue was always kind of
Speaker 7: a cover for the issue of slavery.
Speaker 1: President Jackson was in favor of tariffs. He saw them
Speaker 1: as a way to bring in money and reduce the
Speaker 1: federal debt, one of his campaign promises. John Quincy also
Speaker 1: supported tariffs. It was the one issue that cut through
Speaker 1: the bitterness Adams felt for Jackson and vice versa. But
Speaker 1: it created new enemies.
Speaker 7: Everybody's complicated, but John C. Calhoun is, you know, about
Speaker 7: as evil as it gets in American politics.
Speaker 1: John C. Calhoun was not only Andrew Jackson's vice president,
Speaker 1: he was also John Quincy's vice president. Always a bridesmaid,
Speaker 1: never a bride am I right. Calhoun and John Quincy
Speaker 1: had been colleagues in the eighteen twenties, each holding a
Speaker 1: high office in President James Munroe's administration.
Speaker 7: It begins politics actually very close friends in the cabinet
Speaker 7: with John Quincy Adams. Adams as a Secretary of State.
Speaker 7: He's the secretary of War under Monroe, and they like
Speaker 7: each other. They respect each other.
Speaker 1: Back then, Adams and Calhoun had pretty similar politics.
Speaker 3: They were both nationalists.
Speaker 7: They believed in the federal government of taking an active
Speaker 7: role in developing the country at every level, economically, even culturally,
Speaker 7: although Adams is more of a culturalists.
Speaker 1: But as the eighteen twenties dragged on, Calhoun started rethinking
Speaker 1: his support for federal authority. Tariffs were wildly unpopular in
Speaker 1: his home state of South Carolina. They were seen as
Speaker 1: more than just a tax on imports, they were a
Speaker 1: blatant power grab by the federal government and northern states.
Speaker 7: Calhoun in the eighteen twenties shifts away from his nationalists
Speaker 7: position to become much more of a Southern sectionalist and
Speaker 7: then eventually becoming the great defender of slavery. It's sort
Speaker 7: of a metaphor for what happens to the country. One
Speaker 7: area of the country has to become much more devoted
Speaker 7: to slavery, the south, and the North becomes much more
Speaker 7: anti slavery.
Speaker 1: John C. Calhoun and Southern lawmakers champion states rights, a
Speaker 1: battle over where power should lie that was as old
Speaker 1: as the Constitution with the states or with the federal government,
Speaker 1: and tariffs became the centerpiece of that power struggle.
Speaker 5: South Carolina then holds a political convention which is presided
Speaker 5: over by John Calhoun, the vice president, and they declare
Speaker 5: that they will not honor the tariff.
Speaker 1: I want to pause here because this is important. Southern
Speaker 1: politicians have this aha moment, they say, we don't have
Speaker 1: to honor under the tariff. States have the power of nullification.
Speaker 5: The word nullification was used to mean the right of
Speaker 5: a state to supersede federal law with state law, and
Speaker 5: the issue arose during Adams's presidency because a constant source
Speaker 5: of political conflict at that time was the passing of tariffs.
Speaker 5: Because a tariff, by its nature helps some people and
Speaker 5: hurts other people.
Speaker 1: In theory, nullification gave states the ability to say, no,
Speaker 1: we don't like that federal law.
Speaker 3: We're not going to follow it. It's null and void.
Speaker 5: That's very important when we come to the Civil War,
Speaker 5: because the premise of nullification is that the Constitution is
Speaker 5: not a packed among voters, it's a packed among states.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard the phrase institutional crisis. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: what this was. I mean, what power do the constitution
Speaker 1: and the federal government have if states don't listen. It's
Speaker 1: like if my son could nullify my no screens at
Speaker 1: the dinner table, rule, who's the boss in that situation.
Speaker 1: The idea of nullification swept like wildfire through the South.
Speaker 1: President Jackson was not a fan. See he was a
Speaker 1: Southerner and a big supporter of states rights. But he
Speaker 1: was also President of the United States. He was the
Speaker 1: head of the federal government charged with preserving the Union
Speaker 1: and protecting the Constitution. So all this nullification nonsense, he
Speaker 1: wasn't having it, and that exposed a rift between Jackson
Speaker 1: and his vice President Calhoun. A bitterness simmered silently between
Speaker 1: the two, and like any couple with unresolved issues, they
Speaker 1: tend to boil over at the worst possible and most
Speaker 1: public moment. Welcome to the Jefferson Day Dinner eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: polished stemware, crystal goblets, fancy attire.
Speaker 3: It's a regular who's who.
Speaker 1: Of Washington's elite political players, and this year's noted guests,
Speaker 1: President Andrew Jackson and his vice President John C.
Speaker 3: Calhoun.
Speaker 7: The celebration was dominated by Calhoun's friends, a bunch of
Speaker 7: people who are sympathetic to the Southern rights point of view.
Speaker 1: During these dinners, every man in the room would stand
Speaker 1: up and make a toast to this or to that,
Speaker 1: and then they'd give more toasts. By some accounts, more
Speaker 1: than one hundred toasts could be given at one of
Speaker 1: these dinners.
Speaker 7: They get very drunk slowly because they take all these toasts,
Speaker 7: and every time they did a toast, they'd knock something bad,
Speaker 7: usually something very stifferent.
Speaker 1: President Jackson could probably feel the tension in the room.
Speaker 1: His fervent opposition to nullification put him at odds with
Speaker 1: almost everyone there. Hateful eyes likely weighed heavily on him,
Speaker 1: like daggers being sharpened all around.
Speaker 7: And Jackson is loaded for bear. He's gonna be asked
Speaker 7: to give a toast, and he has a toast already,
Speaker 7: and has a toast that he knows he's gonna sing
Speaker 7: at John C.
Speaker 9: Calhoun.
Speaker 1: Jackson raised his glass sneered over at his vice president.
Speaker 7: He's just standing tall. He's looking right at him. There's
Speaker 7: no question what he's doing. He's staring Calhoun down.
Speaker 3: Jackson let out a hint of a grin and let it.
Speaker 10: Rip our federal Union. It must be preserved.
Speaker 1: The words hit Calhoun like a slap in the face.
Speaker 7: And Calhoun, is her point to have been very flustered
Speaker 7: at this. He just can't believe what just happened.
Speaker 1: Not to be outdone, Calhoun immediately pushes back his chair
Speaker 1: and rises to his feet, raises his glass high in
Speaker 1: the air, locks eyes with Jackson, and bellows for the crowd.
Speaker 9: The Union next to our liberty the most dear. May
Speaker 9: we all remember that it can only be preserved by
Speaker 9: respecting the rights of the states and distributing equally the
Speaker 9: benefit and burden of the Union.
Speaker 1: If they had microphones in eighteen thirty, Calhoun would have
Speaker 1: dropped his The crowd of Calhoun cronies burst into applause.
Speaker 1: Missouri Senator and Jackson allyed. Thomas Hart Benton was at
Speaker 1: the dinner. He told a friend later that the whole
Speaker 1: thing was a setup.
Speaker 6: It was prepared for the express purpose of inaugurating the
Speaker 6: treasonable doctrine of nullification.
Speaker 1: Following the notorious Jefferson Day Dinner, support for nullification and
Speaker 1: defiance of federal law only grew stronger.
Speaker 3: In the South.
Speaker 1: Just two years later, in eighteen thirty two, Calhoun put
Speaker 1: nullification to the test. He pushed his state of South
Speaker 1: Carolina to ignore the federal tariff.
Speaker 7: And Jackson will have none of it. Jackson threatens to
Speaker 7: send the army down, and he's going to take military
Speaker 7: action and make sure that the tariff is duly collected,
Speaker 7: and the ports of South Carolina above all Charleston.
Speaker 1: Now Calhoun was engaged in a duel of sorts with Jackson,
Speaker 1: but this time Jackson was armed with the US military,
Speaker 1: not a pistol. Jackson issued a proclamation to the state
Speaker 1: of South Carolina in late eighteen thirty two.
Speaker 10: You are free members of a flourishing and happy union.
Speaker 10: There is no settled design to oppress you. The power
Speaker 10: to annull a law of the United States assumed by
Speaker 10: one state is incompatible with the existence of the Union.
Speaker 10: Contradiction did expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized
Speaker 10: by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it
Speaker 10: was founded, and destructive of the great object for which
Speaker 10: it was formed.
Speaker 1: Jackson made crystal clear to the South Carolinians the repercussions.
Speaker 3: Of their actions.
Speaker 10: Disunion by armed force is treason.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Jackson's proclamation, John Quincy Adams took to the
Speaker 1: House floor, waving a copy of the Constitution above his head.
Speaker 1: He said, the South has a great protected interest. The
Speaker 1: looms and factories have no representative in Congress. Why should
Speaker 1: not they reason as South Carolina does, why shouldn't Massachusetts
Speaker 1: nullify whatever measures it found animical? Roan's and booze erupted
Speaker 1: from the South Carolina delegation as John Quincy used their
Speaker 1: words against them. One congressman interrupted, shouting, Adams has thrown
Speaker 1: a firebrand into the hall. Calhoun could feel the pressure mounting.
Speaker 1: He had no idea how far Jackson would go in
Speaker 1: the stalemate, and had none of the seasoned veterans steely resolve.
Speaker 7: Calhounion effect backs down. He's not a radical in all
Speaker 7: of this. He's more of a moderate, but he is
Speaker 7: certainly pushing nullification.
Speaker 1: Jackson had won the duel over nullification, and Calhoun resigned
Speaker 1: the vice presidency.
Speaker 7: Nullification is undone, and it's actually an important moment in
Speaker 7: American political history because it is a premonition of the
Speaker 7: Civil War. Civil War's not gonna be fought over nullifications,
Speaker 7: gonna be fought over secession, but secession was kind of
Speaker 7: the ultimate step beyond nullification.
Speaker 1: The nullification crisis had been averted, but it gave Americans
Speaker 1: a glimpse at the potential for a much larger conflict
Speaker 1: to come. Jackson said in May of eighteen thirty three.
Speaker 10: The tariff was only a pretext, and disunion Southern Confederacy
Speaker 10: the real object. The next pretext will be the slavery question.
Speaker 1: Jackson and Enslaver had held the slave powers in check,
Speaker 1: but it was just a matter of time.
Speaker 3: Before things got out of control.
Speaker 1: We'll have more after a break. By the mid eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: the abolitionist movement became organized. Abolitionist newspapers were spreading anti
Speaker 1: slavery petitions, flooded the US Capitol at a furious pace.
Speaker 1: At the heart of it all was a white abolitionist
Speaker 1: named Theodore Weld.
Speaker 6: Theodor Dwight Weld gains a reputation as not just a
Speaker 6: great organizer, not just a great speaker, but as someone who,
Speaker 6: within a lot of institution educational religious can spur anti
Speaker 6: slavery debate in really meaningful ways.
Speaker 1: Weld and other abolitionists created an anti slavery juggernaut in
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, traveling from town to town giving lectures
Speaker 1: and circulating ready to sign anti slavery petitions.
Speaker 6: Weld is part of an incredible network of anti slavery
Speaker 6: activists who've been working on abolishments petitions. He's got a
Speaker 6: lot of help from anti slavery women and other activists.
Speaker 6: In fact, the majority of the people who sign these
Speaker 6: petitions are women. In the North.
Speaker 1: The pressure in Congress to do something about these petitions
Speaker 1: was ratcheting up, but John Quincy Adams was dealing with
Speaker 1: another issue. In the fall of eighteen thirty four, Adams
Speaker 1: received a letter saying that his son, John Adamson was
Speaker 1: extremely ill. The author urged John Quincy to come immediately.
Speaker 1: The news was shocking, but not surprising. Young John was
Speaker 1: John Quincy and Louisa's middle son. Like it did for
Speaker 1: his older brother George, the Adam's name hung like an
Speaker 1: albatross around his neck. To cope with the pressure, he
Speaker 1: self medicated with alcohol. Louisa believed if only John and
Speaker 1: his family came to stay with her, she could save him.
Speaker 3: She pleaded, I.
Speaker 11: Shall be perfectly miserable until I hear that you have
Speaker 11: left the city. As the health of yourself, your wife
Speaker 11: and Fanny make it essential, and the season leaves no
Speaker 11: time for deliberation.
Speaker 1: Desperate, she recommended he sell her silver bread basket to
Speaker 1: cover travel expenses.
Speaker 12: Do not hesitate to take this step, as they are
Speaker 12: my own, and if they can prove serviceable, they will
Speaker 12: yield me more pleasure and more solid wealth than they
Speaker 12: ever have since I've owned them.
Speaker 1: But young John was too sick to travel, so his
Speaker 1: father came to him.
Speaker 8: I went to his bedside twice, song heard him. You
Speaker 8: had no consciousness of anything on earth.
Speaker 1: Helpless John Quincy watched the life fade from his son's body.
Speaker 1: He bent down and kissed his boil on his sweaty brow.
Speaker 1: He had outlived another one of his children.
Speaker 13: I was never like a huge John man. And then
Speaker 13: when I wrote his theft scene, I remember so well
Speaker 13: was one of the most of the dead experiences I
Speaker 13: had writing the biography. I remember writing it and thinking, ah,
Speaker 13: I feel kind of like hot, and then I just
Speaker 13: started sobbing.
Speaker 1: This is Luisa Thomas, staff writer at the New Yorker
Speaker 1: and author of Louisa The Extraordinary Life of Missus Adams.
Speaker 1: She says John Quincy and Luisa's life was filled with
Speaker 1: sorrow and grief, and for all their love and caring,
Speaker 1: they couldn't help but feel like they had failed their children.
Speaker 13: These are human beings in some ways that you can
Speaker 13: never know, but you see them there's some sort of
Speaker 13: window at a distance, and you come to care about them,
Speaker 13: for all their faults, and also just see the ways
Speaker 13: of which the world let them down, as it lets
Speaker 13: down many people, and the ways of which they let
Speaker 13: down each other sometimes too.
Speaker 1: When Luisa Adams learned of her son's death, she was
Speaker 1: incapacitated by grief. She crumbled into a deep depression. Her
Speaker 1: son Charles Francis wrote.
Speaker 2: She lay in a state of stupor for some time,
Speaker 2: followed by violent and indefinite emotion.
Speaker 1: I can imagine her at Peacefield, staring out of her
Speaker 1: window at the yellow wood tree. It's still there today.
Speaker 1: It's one Luisa had planted when her other son, George,
Speaker 1: had died just five years earlier. It's yellowing leaves floating
Speaker 1: to the ground in the cool autumn air. It was
Speaker 1: a reminder of the seasons she had spent without him.
Speaker 1: Down in Washington. John Quincy grieved, as he always had.
Speaker 1: He threw himself into his work in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 3: In the waning days.
Speaker 1: Of eighteen thirty five, abolitionist petitions continued to flood the
Speaker 1: US Capitol.
Speaker 2: In the eighteen thirties, one faction of abolitionists becomes much
Speaker 2: more radical and immediate, demands the end of slavery right
Speaker 2: now and takes direct action.
Speaker 1: Abolitionists didn't just send petitions to the Capitol. They started
Speaker 1: mailing anti slavery petitions directly to voters in the South.
Speaker 2: What the South, he starts to do is intercept the
Speaker 2: mail and search the mail for any anti slavery materials,
Speaker 2: and then prevent it from being delivered.
Speaker 1: Southern politicians seethe as the anti slavery literature took center
Speaker 1: stage in Congress.
Speaker 6: So they say, you know, you have to prevent the
Speaker 6: discussion of abolitionist petitions when they're brought in. You say,
Speaker 6: we cannot talk about these. It's an actual congressional mandate.
Speaker 1: Southern lawmakers tested this new tact on one of Adams's
Speaker 1: fellow representatives from Massachusetts when he began to read a
Speaker 1: petition on the House floor. A congressman from South Carolina
Speaker 1: stopped him, saying the petitions should be rejected out of hand.
Speaker 1: The lawmaker got flustered, caved into the southerners demands and
Speaker 1: sat down without reading the petition. John Quincy was furious.
Speaker 1: He later wrote in his diary.
Speaker 8: This proposition, which was wholly unexpected to polk speaker. This
Speaker 8: concerted him and he blundered in the tangles of the rules.
Speaker 1: Southern politicians then took to the House floor for three days,
Speaker 1: bloviating about why Congress must reject all these anti slavery petitions,
Speaker 1: like listening to your drunken uncle drone on and on
Speaker 1: about his insane politics. At the Thanksgiving dinner table, Adams's
Speaker 1: irritation built and built and built, and then he had
Speaker 1: had enough. He sprung from his desk and spoke directly
Speaker 1: to the Southern delegation.
Speaker 8: You introduce a resolution that the members of this House
Speaker 8: shall not speak a word in derogation of the sublime
Speaker 8: merits of slavery. Well, sir, you begin with suppressing the
Speaker 8: right of petition. You must next suppress the right of
Speaker 8: speech in this house. You suppress the right of petition,
Speaker 8: You suppressed the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press,
Speaker 8: and the freedom of religion.
Speaker 5: For in the.
Speaker 8: Minds of many worthy honest and honorable men. Fanatics, if
Speaker 8: you so please to call them. This is a religious
Speaker 8: question in which they act under what they believe to
Speaker 8: be a sense of duty to their God.
Speaker 1: When Theodore Weld read about John Quincy's speech on the
Speaker 1: House floor, he had a thought, what if Adams could
Speaker 1: be a voice for the anti slavery movement in Congress.
Speaker 1: John Quincy's support for freedom of speech had put him
Speaker 1: on an ideological collision course within slavers and made him
Speaker 1: a hero in the eyes of abolitionists. Adams wanted to
Speaker 1: stay neutral when it came to slavery, but the ground
Speaker 1: was shifting all around him. And then war came to
Speaker 1: the Southern border and it changed everything. On the next
Speaker 1: episode of Founding Son.
Speaker 14: I shall never surrender, all retreat. I am determined to
Speaker 14: sustain myself as long as possible and die like a
Speaker 14: soldier who never forgets what is due to his own
Speaker 14: honor and that of his country, victory or death.
Speaker 6: There's a sense that if Texas is an annex then
Speaker 6: Great Britain is going to step in or some other
Speaker 6: European power, and you'll have this big anti slavery borderland
Speaker 6: in the Southwest.
Speaker 1: Founding Son is a curiosity podcast brought to you by
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts in School of Humans. For help with this episode,
Speaker 1: we want to thank James Traub, author of John Quincy
Speaker 1: Adams Militant Spirit, Mary Elliott, Curator of American Slavery at
Speaker 1: the Smithsonians National Museum of African American.
Speaker 3: History and Culture.
Speaker 1: Richard Newman, professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology,
Speaker 1: Luisa Thomas, staff writer at the New Yorker and author
Speaker 1: of Louisa, The Extraordinary Life of missus Adams. Sean will Lentz,
Speaker 1: author of the Rise of American Democracy, Jefferson to Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Matthew Carp, professor of history at Princeton University and author
Speaker 1: of This Vast Southern Empire Slaveholders at the Helm of
Speaker 1: American Foreign Policy. Our lead producer, story editor, and sound
Speaker 1: designer is James Morrison. Our senior producer is Jessica Metzger.
Speaker 1: Our production manager is Daisy Church. Fact checking by Adam Bisno.
Speaker 1: Jesse Niswanger mixed and mastered this episode. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Virginia Prescott, Brandon barr, El C. Crowley, and Jason English.
Speaker 1: Original music by me Bob Crawford. Additional scoring by Blue
Speaker 1: Dot Sessions. John Quincy Adams is voiced by Patrick Warburton,
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson is voiced by Nick Offerman. Luisa Adams is
Speaker 1: voiced by Gray Delisle. Additional voices in this episode provided
Speaker 1: by Scott Davitt, Jay Jones, and James Morrison. Show art
Speaker 1: designed by Darren Shock. Special thanks to John Higgins, Julia
Speaker 1: chris Gow, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the National Park Service.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five
Speaker 1: star rating in your podcast app. You can also check
Speaker 1: out other Curiosity podcasts to learn about history, pop culture,
Speaker 1: true crime, and more. This podcast was recorded under a
Speaker 1: SAG after a collective bargaining agreement. I'm your host, Bob Crawford,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 9: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: School of Humans