

Peter Charles Hoffer
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all petitions against slavery, effectively forbidding Congress from addressing the antislavery issue until it was rescinded in late 1844.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...
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all petitions against slavery, effectively forbidding Congress from addressing the antislavery issue until it was rescinded in late 1844.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.
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.
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.
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.
Preface
Prologue
1. "Slavery Cannot Be Abolished"
2. "Am I Gagged?"
3. "He Knew That They All Abhorred Slavery"
4. "How Can the Union Be Preserved?"
Epilogue
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
with Hopkins Press Books