Joshua Giddings

Antislavery congressman who appears in Kyle’s notes on the John Quincy Adams biography (by James Traub) as Adams’s ally and successor in the congressional fight against slavery. The book records Adams overwhelming Southern confidence — Giddings overheard a colleague say “I would rather die a thousand deaths than again to encounter that old man” — and Adams writing Giddings a short poem (“I sought, and found at last — in thee”). Giddings, the notes record, would remain in office until 1859, taking over from the aging Adams the leadership of the anti-slavery movement in Congress.

Context: Joshua Reed Giddings (1795–1864) was a U.S. Representative from Ohio and one of the most outspoken abolitionists in antebellum Congress, closely associated with John Quincy Adams’s later antislavery efforts.

Where this appears

• John Quincy Adams — Adams’s antislavery ally and successor in Congress; recipient of Adams’s poem, holds office until 1859