In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from reading the “Life and letters of John Quincy Adams,” which are given as containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own lifeexperience.
Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power, and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day recorded. Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance even the United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored people were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John Q. Adams had means of proving there were no negroes. When he found that these
