Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1100404
ture on the moon to get around the House rule against referring to events which took place in committee (see fig. 2 caption). e honorary title of "Old Man Eloquent" is therefore somewhat misleading as to the real source of Adams's power. It is no coincidence that the truly great orators of his age, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun, all transferred early to the Senate, where they encountered fewer competing voices and fewer restrictions on debate. To excel in the much larger House of Representatives with its complex "tangle of rules," a different set of skills was required. Or, as the Old Man Eloquent himself once succinctly put it, "so indispensable is small management in this great assembly." 33 DR. DANIEL PEART is senior lecturer in American History at Queen Mary University of London. He is currently working on a book on Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789–1861. 1. Henry B. Stanton, Random Recollections (New York, 1887), 60. 2. John Fairfield to Anna Fairfield, Washington, 31 Dec. 1835, in Arthur G. Staples, ed., e Letters of John Fairfield, (Lewiston, ME, 1922), 47. 3. Leverett Saltonstall to Anne E. Saltonstall, Wash- ington, 7 Jan. 1839, in Robert E. Moody, ed., e Papers of Leverett Saltonstall, 1816–1845, 5 vols. (Boston, 1978–1992), 2:159. 4. Robert M. T. Hunter (Speaker of the Twenty-Sixth Congress) was elected as a Whig, called himself inde- pendent, and would soon become a Democrat; Adams, with no patience for such nuances, always considered him as belonging to the latter camp. 5. Entries for 6, 7 Nov. 1830, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Com- prising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, 12 vols. (Philadelphia, 1874–1877), 8:245–246. 6. Barnabas Bidwell to omas Jefferson, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 28 July 1806, Founders Online (web- site), http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeffer- son/99-01-02-4095. 7. Joshua R. Giddings, Speeches in Congress (Boston, 1853), 365. Giddings (1795–1864), a lawyer and state legislator, represented Ohio in the House, 1838–59. 8. Entries for 5, 12 Dec. 1831, in Adams, Memoirs, 8:431, 433. 9. Entry for 13 Dec. 1831, in Adams, Memoirs, 8:437. 10. Entry for 28 Dec. 1831, in Adams, Memoirs, 8:446. 11. John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, Philadelphia, 19 Jul. 1832, Reel 496, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. e Compro- mise Tariff of 1833, passed the following session, was far less popular at the time, although it monopolizes the attention of historians today. 12. Register of Debates, 22nd Congress, 1st sess., 3876. 13. John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Adams, Washington, 13 Jul. 1832, in Charles Francis Adams Jr., "J. Q. Adams in Twenty-Second Congress," Proceedings NOTES THE CAPITOL DOME 28 Fig. 16. Petition to rescind the Gag Rule, from the women of Brookline, Massachusetts, 14 Feb. 1838