John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835-1850

by Peter Charles Hoffer

Overview

Examining the congressional debates on antislavery petitions before the Civil War.

Passed by the House of Representatives at the start of the 1836 session, the gag rule rejected all petitions against slavery, effectively forbidding Congress from addressing the antislavery issue until it was rescinded in late 1844. In the Senate, a similar rule lasted until 1850. Strongly supported by all southern and some northern Democratic congressmen, the gag rule became a proxy defense of slavery’s morality and economic value in the face of growing pro-abolition sentiment. In John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835–1850, Peter Charles Hoffer transports readers to Washington, DC, in the period before the Civil War to contextualize the heated debates surrounding the rule.

At first, Hoffer explains, only a few members of Congress objected to the rule. These antislavery representatives argued strongly for the reception and reading of incoming abolitionist petitions. When they encountered an almost uniformly hostile audience, however, John Quincy Adams took a different tack. He saw the effort to gag the petitioners as a violation of their constitutional rights. Adams’s campaign to lift the gag rule, joined each year by more and more northern members of Congress, revealed how the slavery issue promoted a virulent sectionalism and ultimately played a part in southern secession and the Civil War.

A lively narrative intended for history classrooms and anyone interested in abolitionism, slavery, Congress, and the coming of the Civil War, John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835–1850, vividly portrays the importance of the political machinations and debates that colored the age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421423883
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2017
Series:	Witness to History
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter Charles Hoffer is a distinguished research professor of history at the University of Georgia. He is the author of many books, including Sensory Worlds in Early America and Law and People in Colonial America.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Prologue: "John Quincy Adams Goes to Congress" 1

1 "Slavery Cannot Be Abolished" 6

2 'Am I Gagged?" 28

3 "He Knew That They All Abhorred Slavery" 45

4 "How Can the Union Be Preserved?" 64

Epilogues: "The Righteousness of Such a War as This Is" 86

Notes 89

Essay on Sources 101

Index 105

What People are Saying About This

Earl M. Maltz

Hoffer provides a concise, readable account of one of the pivotal disputes in the ongoing struggle over the future of slavery in the United States. Anyone who is interested in the politics of the antebellum era will profit from reading this book.

Paul Finkelman

As the United States watches a dysfunctional congressional majority prevent serious debate over serious issues, Peter Hoffer reminds us how Congress in the 1830s and 1840s refused to face its responsibilities in dealing with the nation's most pressing issue, by preventing meaningful debate over slavery, and ignored the complaints of literally millions of Americans who opposed human bondage. This is a history book that should be read by every member of Congress.

From the Publisher

A simply splendid book that will benefit student learners and their teachers. John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 18351850, is lucid, fast-paced, clever, and richly researched.
—John David Smith, coauthor of Soldiering for Freedom: How the Union Army Recruited, Trained, and Deployed the U.S. Colored Troops

Hoffer provides a concise, readable account of one of the pivotal disputes in the ongoing struggle over the future of slavery in the United States. Anyone who is interested in the politics of the antebellum era will profit from reading this book.
—Earl M. Maltz, author of Slavery and the Supreme Court, 1825–1861

As the United States watches a dysfunctional congressional majority prevent serious debate over serious issues, Peter Hoffer reminds us how Congress in the 1830s and 1840s refused to face its responsibilities in dealing with the nation's most pressing issue, by preventing meaningful debate over slavery, and ignored the complaints of literally millions of Americans who opposed human bondage. This is a history book that should be read by every member of Congress.
—Paul Finkelman, author of Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation's Highest Court

John David Smith

A simply splendid book that will benefit student learners and their teachers. John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule is lucid, fast-paced, clever, and richly researched.

Earl Maltz

"Hoffer provides a concise, readable account of one of the pivotal disputes in the ongoing struggle over the future of slavery in the United States. Anyone who is interested in the politics of the antebellum era will profit from reading this book."