fast to be endured longer with indifference by the impatient
Southerners. At the next session of Congress they concluded to try to
stop it, and their ingenious scheme was to make Congress shot-proof,
so to speak, against such missiles. On January 4, 1836, Mr. Adams
presented an abolition petition couched in the usual form, and moved
that it be laid on the table, as others like it had lately been. But
in a moment Mr. Glascock, of Georgia, moved that the petition be not
received. Debate sprang up on a point of order, and two days later,
before the question of reception was determined, a resolution was
offered by Mr. Jarvis, of Maine, declaring that the House would not
entertain any petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. This resolution was supported on the ground that (p. 249)
Congress had no constitutional power in the premises. Some days
later, January 18, 1836, before any final action had been reached upon
this proposition, Mr. Adams presented some more abolition petitions,
one of them signed by "one hundred and forty-eight ladies, citizens of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; for, I said, I had not yet brought
myself to doubt whether females were citizens." The usual motion not
to receive was made, and then a new device was resorted to in the
shape of a motion that the motion not to receive be laid on the table.

On February 8, 1836, this novel scheme for shutting off petitions
against slavery immediately upon their presentation was referred to a
select committee of which Mr. Pinckney was chairman. On May 18 this
committee reported in substance: 1. That Congress had no power to
interfere with slavery in any State; 2. That Congress ought not to
interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia; 3. That whereas
the agitation of the subject was disquieting and objectionable, "all
petitions, memorials, resolutions or papers, relating in any way or to
any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of
slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon
the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had (p. 250)
thereon." When it came to taking a vote upon this report a division of
the question was called for, and the yeas and nays were ordered. The
first resolution was then read, whereupon Mr. Adams at once rose and
pledged himself, if the House would allow him five minutes' time, to
prove it to be false. But cries of "order" resounded;