"Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other."
John Quincy Adams is widely credited to have said this regarding Ohio's claim of the Toledo Strip from the Michigan Territory. However, I do not know where or by which medium he said it. Letter? Speech? Editorial?
The quoted passage would appear to have been part of a speech made during a debate on the matter in Congress.
...for when the matter was taken up in Congress the advocates on each side displayed a feeling in the matter no less intense than that exhibited by the partisans on the Ohio frontier. John Quincy Adams championed the cause of Michigan, and declared in an impassioned address that never before in his life had he known "a controversy in which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other." he had able assistants on the debate, and Ohio also was represented by men who were abundantly equipped with ability to do battle for the other side of the contention.
Memoirs of Lucas County and the City of Toledo, H.Scribner (1910), pg 66
Adam's included the following thoughts on the matter in his diary, which includes the quoted passage:
[Except from March 4th, 1835]
The greatest injury [the Speaker, John Bell] has done me was by appointing me Chairman of the committee on the bill from the Senate fixing the northern boundary line of the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinios - a service which it was impossible for me honestly to perform with indisposing bitterly against me three whole States of the Union and twenty-nine members their Representatives in the house. This has accordingly been the result. Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clear on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other; never a case where the temptation was so intense to take the strongest side, and the duty of taking the weakest so thankless. I cannot help suspecting Bell's motive for putting me upon it. Personally, to me it has been a great misfortune.
