[Illustration: THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.]
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 life-
experience.
"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 falsified figures had been used with the English
embassador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old
man called on Calhoun, and showed him the industriously collected
_proofs_ of the falsity of this census. He says: 'He writhed like
a trodden rattlesnake, but said the census was full of mistakes; but
one part balanced another,--it was not worth while to correct them.
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