These apostles of universal liberty besieged Congress with memorials praying for such legislative measures as would carry out their designs. Failure after failure only served to inspire them with fresh courage and more vigorous determination. They were met with the most resolute resistance by representative from the slave- holding States, who sought to deny them a hearing, and declared that the mere consideration of their propositions by Congress would not only justify, but would inevitably precipitate, a dissolution of the Union. Undaunted by any form of opposition, the Abolitionists stubbornly maintained their ground, and finally succeeded in creating a great popular excitement by insisting on the simple right of petition as inseparable from free government and free citizenship. On this issue John Quincy Adams, who had entered the House of Representatives in 1831, two years after his retirement from the Presidency, waged a memorable warfare. Not fully sympathizing with the Abolitionists in their measures or their methods, Mr. Adams maintained that they had the right to be heard. On this incidental issue he forced the controversy until it enlisted the attention of the entire country. He finally drove the opponents of free discussion to seek shelter under the adoption of an odious rule in the House of Representatives, popularly named the "Atherton gag," from Mr. Charles G. Atherton, a Democratic representative from New Hampshire, who reported it to the House in December, 1838. The rule was originally devised, however, in a caucus of Southern Democratic members. In the light of the present day, when slavery no longer exists in the land, when speech is absolutely free, in and out of Congress, it is hard to believe that during the Presidency of Mr. Van Buren, and under the speakership of Mr. Polk, the House of Representatives voted that "every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way or to any extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof, shall on presentation, without any further action thereon, be laid upon the table, without being debated, printed, or referred." The Southern representatives, both Democrats and Whigs, and the Northern Democrats, sustained this extraordinary resolution, which became widely known as the 21st Rule of the House. The Northern Whigs, to their honor be it said, were steadily against it. The real design of the measure was to take from Mr. Adams the power of precipitating a discussion on the slavery question, but the most unskilled should have seen that in this it would fail. It resembled in its character the re-actionary and tyrannical edicts so frequently employed in absolute governments, and was unsuited to the temper, ran counter to the judgment, and proved offensive to the conscience, of the American people.