Evidently the letter is in response to a statement by Adams in which he had said that he could “..give no countenance or support’ to petitions which had been presented to him.   These petitions called for an end to slavery in the District of Columbia.  Garrison strongly rebukes Adams and demands a public explanation of his reasons for the statement.  Garrison hopes that this may render “unneccsary a second letter from my pen.  Still distrusting your abiity to make error truth, and fraud equity, and cruelty benevolence, I remain, with unfeigned respect …  “

Apparently from the New Orleans True American, saying that “Public opinion in the south, would now, we are sure, justify an immediate resort to force by the southern delegation  —EVEN ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS – were they forwith TO  SEIZE AND DRAG FROM THE HALL any man who dared to insult them,  as that eccentric old show-man John Quincy Adams, has dared to do.    ……..”

Here is the record of a “great meeting” in Plymouth Town Hall, which votes favorably on resolutions in support of Adams, and the right of petitioning.

Under Refuge of Oppression, preceded by a comment:”Another touch of democracy!” From the Boston Morning Post, titled The North and the South:  “We are sorry to see the New Bedford Morning Register, a paper for which we have a high respect, promulgating the same sentiments relative to the South that have filled the federal papers ever since the adoption of the Constitution. In taking this ground, however, we are not astonished to see the Register quoting in its support the language of a federal-whig-pipe-laying governor. Jefferson said that the democracy of the South were the natural allies of the democracy of the North.  The federalists know this, and finding that they cannot conquer the democracy of the North and South united, have always sought to divide them, even at the cost of the Union.  This is now the scheme of the abolitionists, (the tools of federalism)  — of John Quincy Adams, who was reared in the hot-bed of federalism, and acted with them as one of their chief men……”    At the end there is this note: “The Register has since obsequiously kissed the ‘democratic’ toe of the Post!”

Constituents of Adams, in the twelfth district, meet in Braintree, and welcome Adams,after completion of the longest Congressional system known to him, for the ten years he has been in Congress.  Strong words from Adams, and strong resolutions passed to support the right of petitions to be presented and heard.

A letter from Adams, explains why he cannot become defender of Latimer, but offers his counsel to any who defend him.

62,791 people have signed petition to the state legislature, and 48,000 to the US Congress.  John Quincy Adams was selected to take charge of the petitions to Congress.

In an article which expresses a strong hope that the gag law will be repealed in the present session of Congress, and praising the Massachusetts Legislature for its resolves which have had positive affect toward that end, the article comments that a speech by Mr. Adams was “exceedingly defective in several particulars, and far from being creditable to his heart …. He is no modern abolitionist  — not he – but only such an one as was Thomas Jefferson, who lived and died a slaveholder!”

A letter from Adams, Aug 19, in Quincy commending a proposed publication of a book on Tobacco.   Adams recounts his previous addiction to tobacco, and that he has been free from that addiction for more than thirty years; he no longer feels its “stimulating power”.  He urges all to try but for three months the experiment which he made.  He would “turn every acre of tobacco into a wheat field.”

An item from the National Intelligencer tell of the death of Adams on the floor of Congress.