Mr. Haynes said, the true motion, in his judgment, would be to move that the petition be rejected.

Mr. Lewis hoped that no motion of that kind would come from any gentleman from a slaveholding section of the country.

Mr. Haynes said he would cheerfully withdraw his motion.

Mr. Lewis was glad the motion was withdrawn.  He believed that the House should punish severely such an infraction of its decorum and its rules; and he called on the members from the slaveholding States to come forward now and demand of the House the punishment of the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Grantland, of Georgia, would second the motion, and go all lengths in support of it.

Mr. Lewis said, that if the House would inflict no punishment for such flagrant violations of its dignity as this, it would be better for the Representatives from the slaveholding Slates to go home at once.

Mr. Alford said, if the gentleman from Massachusetts intended to present this petition, the moment it was presented he should move, as an act of justice to the South, which he in part represented, and which he conceived had been treated with indignity, that it be taken from the House and burnt; and he hoped that every man who was a friend to the constitution, would support him.  There must be an end to this constant attempt to raise excitement, or the Union could not exist much longer.  The moment any man should disgrace the Government under which he lived, by presenting a petition from slaves, praying for emancipation, he hoped that petition would, by order of the House, be committed to the flames.

Mr. Waddy Thompson moved the following resolution:—­

“Resolved, That the Hon. John Quincy Adams, by the attempt just made by him to introduce a petition purporting on its face to be from slaves, has been guilty of a gross disrespect to this House, and that he be instantly brought to the bar, to receive the severe censure of the Speaker.”

The idea of bringing the venerable ex-President to the bar, like a culprit, to receive a reprimand from a comparatively youthful Speaker, would be a spectacle so disgraceful, and withal so absurd, that the proposition met with no favor.  An easier way to reprimand was devised.  Mr. Haynes introduced the following resolution:—­

“Resolved, That John Quincy Adams, a Representative from the State of Massachusetts, has rendered himself justly liable to the severest censure of this House, and is censured accordingly, for having attempted to present to the House the petition of slaves.”

Several other resolutions and propositions, from members of slaveholding States, were submitted to the House; but none proved satisfactory even to themselves.  Mr. Adams, unmoved by the tempest which raged around him, defended himself, and the integrity of his purpose, with the distinguished ability and eloquence which characterized all his public labors.