This alarm had its desired effect.

The House of Representatives, in 1837, adopted a rule of discipline, equivalent to an act, ordaining that no petition relating to slavery, nearly or remotely, should be read, debated or considered.

The Senate adopted a like edict.

The State authorities approved.

Slavery was not less strongly entrenched behind the bulwark of precedents in the courts of law than in the fixed habits of thought and action among the people.