The next day was set apart to count the votes for President, and so the debate was resumed February 9. It soon become more confused than ever. Motions were made to lay the resolutions on the table; they were withdrawn; they were renewed; they were voted down; and, finally, after much discussion, and when at last the final question was about being taken, Mr. Adams inquired whether he was to be allowed to be heard in his own defense before being condemned. So he obtained the floor, and immediately the whole aspect of the case was changed. During three days he had been the prisoner at the bar; suddenly he became the judge on the bench. Never, in the history of forensic eloquence, has a single speech effected a greater change in the purpose of a deliberative assembly. Often as the Horatian description has been quoted of the just man, tenacious of his purpose, who fears not the rage of citizens clamoring for what is wrong, it has never found a fitter application than to the unshaken mind of John Quincy Adams, standing alone, in the midst of his antagonists, like a solid monument which the idle storms beat against in vain. He began by saying that he had been waiting during these three days for an answer to the question which he had put to the Speaker, and which the Speaker had put to the House, but which the House had not yet answered, namely, whether the paper he held in his hand came under the rule of the House or not. They had discussed everything else, but had not answered that question. They had wasted the time of the House in considering how they could censure him for doing what he had not done. All he wished to know was, whether a petition from slaves should be received or not. He himself thought that it ought to be received; but if the House decided otherwise, he should not present it. Only one gentleman had undertaken to discuss that question, and his argument was, that if slavery was abolished by Congress in any State, the Constitution was violated; and, _therefore_, slaves ought not to be allowed to petition for anything. He, Mr. Adams, was unable to see the connection between the premises and the conclusion. Hereupon poor Mr. French, the author of this argument, tried to explain what he meant by it, but left his meaning as confused as before. Then Mr. Adams added, that if you deprived any one in the community of the right of petition, which was only the right of offering a prayer, you would find it difficult to know where to stop; one gentleman had objected to the reception of one petition, because offered by women of a bad character. Mr. Patton of Virginia says he _knows_ that one of the names is of a woman of a bad character. _How does he know it?_ Hereupon Mr. Patton explained that he did not himself know the woman, but had been told that her character was not good.