When we look at the contrast, and see how weak and defenceless they are, and how strong and mighty we are, the character of the House, the honor of the country, and the feelings of the world, call upon us to pursue this course toward them.

192 Edward Everett summed up the causes of the Florida War to be the efforts of the whites to capture negro slaves among the Seminoles and to wrest from these Indians their lands per fas aut nefas.

193 But of all the speeches the most widely noted denunciation of the war was made by Everetts colleague, Adams the ex-President.

194 The immediate occasion for Adamss speech was a joint reso- lution from the Senate authorizing the President to dis- tribute rations to the suffering frontiersmen in Alabama and Georgia as had been done to the sufferers in Florida.

195 Although stating that he should vote for the resolution because of his sympathy for the sufferers, Adams main- tained that "mere commiseration, though one of the most amiable impulses of our nature, gives us no power to drain the Treasury of the people for the relief of the suf- fering".