be tried by this house for that crime, the crime of murder. I opposed the trial of that crime by this house. I was willing that the parties to that atrocious crime should be sent to their natural judges, to have an impartial trial; and it is very probable that I saved that blood-stained man from the censure of the house at the time."
Mr. Wise, interrupting Mr. Adams, inquired of the speaker whether his character or conduct was involved in the issue before the house, and whether it was in order to charge him with the crime of murder; a charge made by a man who had at the time defended him from the charge on that floor; and who had, as he was informed by one of Mr. Adams' own colleagues, defended him before thousands of people in Massachusetts.
Mr. Adams said he never had defended the man on the merits of the case; and never did believe but what he was the guilty man, and that the man who pulled the trigger was but an instrument in his hands. He repeated, that the house had no power to try and punish him for the crimes charged against him. The constitution provides, that "in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury." The house was not an impartial tribunal. "I wish," said Mr. Adams, "to speak of the slaveholders of this house and of the Union with respect. There are three classes of persons included in the slave interest as representatives here. As to the slaveholder, I have nothing to say against him, except if I am to be tried by him, I shall not have an impartial trial. I challenge him for partiality — for preädjudication upon this question, as a question of contempt, which I repeat, is the only charge on which I can be made to answer here, I say he is not impartial. Every slaveholder has not only an interest, but the most sordid of all interests — a personal, pecuniary interest — which will govern him. I come from a portion of the country where slavery is known only by name; I come from a soil that bears not the foot of a slave upon it. I represent here the descendants of Bedford, and Winslow, and Carver, and Alden — the first who alighted on the rock of Plymouth. And am I, the representative of the descendants of these men — of the free people of the state of Massachusetts, that bears not a slave upon it — am I to come here and be tried for high treason because I presented a petition — a petition — to this house, and because the fancy or imagination of the gentleman from Kentucky supposes that there was anti-slavery or the abolition of slavery in it? The gentleman charges me with subornation of perjury and of high treason, and he calls upon this house, as a matter of mercy and grace, not to expel me for these crimes, but to inflict upon me the severest censure they can; and to decide upon that, there are one hundred members of this house who are slaveholders. Is any one of them impartial? No. I trust they will not consider themselves as impartial men; I trust that many of them will have those qualms of conscience which the gentleman from Accomac (Mr. Wise) assigns as his reason for being excused, and that they will not vote upon a question on which their personal, pecuniary, and most sordid interests are at stake."
Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, also maintained that the house was not the
