ne of the aisles with a sarcastic
smile and silvery tone of voice, said, 'What aid from the House
would the Speaker desire?' The Speaker snarled back, 'The
gentleman from South Carolina is out of order!' and a peal of
laughter burst forth from all sides of the House."

So that little skirmish ended, much more cheerfully than was often the
case.

December 20, 1838, he presented fifty anti-slavery petitions, among
which were three praying for the recognition of the Republic of Hayti.
Petitions of this latter kind he strenuously insisted should be
referred to a select committee, or else to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, accompanied in the latter case with explicit instructions
that a report thereon should be brought in. He audaciously stated that
he asked for these instructions because so many petitions of a like
tenor had been sent to the Foreign Affairs Committee, and had found it
a limbo from which they never again emerged, and the chairman had said
that this would continue to be the case. The chairman, sitting two
rows behind Mr. Adams, said, "that insinuation should not be (p. 260)
made against a gentleman!" "I shall make," retorted Mr. Adams, "what
insinuation I please. This is not an insinuation, but a direct,
positive assertion."

January 7, 1839, he cheerfully records that he presented ninety-five
petitions, bearing "directly or indirectly upon the slavery topics,"
and some of them very exasperating in their language. March 30, 1840,
he handed in no less than five hundred and eleven petitions, many of
which were not receivable under the "gag" rule adopted on January 28
of that year, which had actually gone the length of refusing so much
as a reception to abolition petitions. April 13, 1840, he presented a
petition for the repeal of the laws in the District of Columbia, which
authorized the whipping of women. Besides this he had a multitude of
others, and he only got through the presentation of them "just as the
morning hour expired." On January 21, 1841, he found much amusement in
puzzling his Southern adversaries by presenting some petitions in
which, besides the usual anti-slavery prayers, there was a prayer to
refuse to admit to the Union any new State whose constitution should
tolerate slavery. The Speaker said that only the latter prayer could
be _received_ under the "gag" rule. Connor, of North Carolina, (p. 261)
moved to lay on the table so much of the petition as could b