In the 19^th century, Americans vigorously exercised their First Amendment right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” An antislavery petition drive in the 1830s swamped Congress with 130,000 petitions in a single year. In response, beginning in 1836, proslavery members of the House of Representatives passed a series of gag rules to prevent discussion of such petitions. Representative and former President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts worked for years to overturn the gag rule, which the House finally repealed in 1844.