Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

The political tendencies of the year 1839, outside of the anti-slavery organization, were reactionary, as was to be expected on the eve of presidential nominations.² To the clear-sighted, the action of the Massachusetts Legislature (the highest example of the fruits of antislavery endeavor) in refusing to repeal the law against³ mixed marriages, and to confirm its former manly resolutions on the abolition of slavery in the District, was prophetic of the fate of a third party such as Stewart, Holley, and Stanton were anxious to create. All standards were lowered to conciliate votes. John Quincy Adams (certainly not from ambitious motives) also disappointed once more his best friends. True, on January 7, 1839, in the House of Representatives—

I was about an hour and a half in delivering all my petitions.⁴ There was one from William Lloyd Garrison and sundry inhabitants of Boston, praying for the removal of the seat of government to some place, north of the Potomac, where the Declaration of Independence is not considered as a mere rhetorical flourish. I alluded to a petition from the inhabitants of Georgetown, presented at the last session, praying to be re-ceded to the State of Maryland, and moved that Garrison's petition should be referred to a select committee, with instructions to enquire and report to the House their opinion of the constitutional power of Congress to remove the seat of government, and to re-cede to the States of Virginia and Maryland their respective portions of the territory of the District. I said it was a grave and serious question, and, if Congress had the power, this petition was an offer of compromise, as a substitute for the abolition of slavery in the