Mr.Adams labored to have it extended to all criminal offences.

Before the territory had a representative in Congress, the government proposed to levy a tax on the people for purposes of revenue.
This attempt met the decided opposition of Mr.Adams.He insisted it would be an exercise of government, without the consent of the governed, which, to all intents, is a despotism.
In 1805, he labored to have Congress pass a law levying a duty on the importation of slaves.

This was the first public indication of his views on the subject of slavery.

It was a premonition of the bold, unflinching, noble warfare against that institution, and of the advocacy of human freedom and human rights in the widest sense, which characterized the closing scenes of his remarkable career, and which will perpetuate his fame, when other acts of his life shall have passed from the remembrance of men.

Although at that early day but little was said in regard to slavery, yet the young senator saw it was fraught with danger to the Union--conferring political power and influence on slaveholders, on principles false and pernicious, and calculated ultimately to distract the harmony of the country, and endanger the permanency of our free institutions.