From a letter which had accompanied the petitions, he inferred that they came from members of the Society of Friends or Quakers; a body of men, he declared, than whom there was no more respectable and worthy class of citizens--none who more strictly made their lives a commentary on their professions; a body of men comprising, in his firm opinion, as much of human virtue, and as little of human infirmity, as any other equal number of men, of any denomination, upon the face of the globe.
The petitions for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, Mr.Adams considered relating to a proper subject for the legislation of Congress.

But he did not give his countenance to those which prayed for the abolition of slavery in that District.

Not that he would approbate the system of slavery; for he was, and in fact had been through life, its most determined foe.

But he believed the time had not then arrived for the discussion of that subject in Congress.

It was his settled conviction that a premature agitation of slavery in the national councils would greatly retard, rather than facilitate, the abolition of that giant evil--"as the most salutary medicines," he declared in illustration, "unduly administered, were the most deadly of poisons." The position taken by Mr.Adams, in presenting these petitions, was evidently misunderstood by many, and especially by Abolitionists.