It would have been wise for the slaveholders to have left this solution of the question undisturbed, but they did not see it so. On January 4th, 1836, Mr. Adams presented a petition from sundry citizens of {259} Massachusetts containing the usual prayer, and said that "in conformity with the course heretofore adopted, he should move that the petition, without reading, be laid on the table." Mr. Patton interrupted Mr. Adams with an inquiry addressed to the Speaker as to whether the petition had been received by the House, and the Speaker replied that it had not. He said that, upon looking up the authorities, he "had formed the opinion that the first question to be decided, upon the motion of a member, was whether the petition be received or not." The Speaker, Mr. Polk, had now come out of his uncertainty about the right of petition including the reception of the petition by the House, as a constitutional obligation, and now definitely denied that the right of petition included the right to have the petition received by the House. This was a fatal move, a fatal mistake upon his part. The object professedly sought by all parties, except such Abolitionists as Mr. Slade, was the prevention of agitation upon the slavery question in the halls of Congress. Whether all were sincere in this profession is questionable. It had been insinuated that there were agitators upon this question from both sections of the country, who were disingenuously claiming to be classed with the maintainers of peace. It does really seem that the innuendo was justified as to certain of the Southerners by the position now assumed by Mr. Patton and Mr. Polk, and then by Mr. Glascock, who, immediately after the ruling of the Speaker, moved that this petition be not received. While Mr. Adams, who sincerely believed that reference as well as reception was a necessary consequence of the right of petition, had accommodated himself to the decision which the House had made a fortnight before, these Southern gentlemen were now proposing to drive the House from {260} the solid middle ground, then occupied, toward a position which the majority considered to be an encroachment upon the constitutional right of petition, a movement upon their part which was certain, and known by all to be certain, to provoke an excited debate upon the question of slavery. It may be that they thought the refusal to receive one of these anti-slavery petitions would prevent any more from being presented, and that it was better to have it out once for all than to be continually receiving, and listening to the reading of, these petitions. If so, they were wofully mistaken. [Sidenote: Mr. Adams' futile attempt to prevent slavery agitation in Congress.]