Archibald McClean letter to Francis James supporting anti-slavery measures in Virginia

Archibald McClean (1766-1845), a well connected Virginia lawyer (who was born in Freehold Township, New Jersey and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1792) supports both John Quincy Adams and anti-slavery measures in Virginia in a letter to Francis James (1799-1886). James is a Pennsylvania congressman, lawyer, Anti-Masonic, Whig member. McClean praised John Quincy Adams in the letter and voiced his belief that Adams would ultimately prevail against the gag rule.In the House, Adams became a champion of free speech, demanding that petitions against slavery be heard despite a "gag rule" that said they could not be heard. In 1836 Southern Congressmen voted in a rule, called the "gag rule," that called for the immediate tabling of any petitions about slavery. Congress had been flooded with petitions signed by citizens protesting slavery; most originated from the Anti-Slavery Society based in New York. The Gag rule (of 1840) prevented discussion of slavery from 1836 to 1844, but Adams frequently managed to evade it by parliamentary skill. Adams supported anti-slavery issues during his seventeen-year congressional career, which began after his presidency.Using unconventional tactics, Adams evaded and ignored the gag rule until his persistence irritated his colleagues to the point that he was threatened with censure. Although the House never voted to censure Adams, the discussion ignited by his actions and the attempts of others to quiet him raised questions of the right to petition, the right to legislative debate, and the morality of slavery. During the censure debate, Adams said that he took delight in the fact that southerners would forever remember him as "the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of southern slavery that ever existed".

McClean also discusses the Southerners in Congress who opposed Adams and their hypocritical posture toward the enslaved and America's failure to agree with England on a reciprocal right to search each other's vessels to suppress the slave trade, as England had already abolished slavery in 1833. He also requests a copy of Adams speech on the Amistad case.