THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9602290594
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBOTHAM
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
ARGUING ABOUT SLAVERY
The Great Battle in the United States Congress
WILLIAM LEE MILLER
Alfred A. Knopf. 577 pp. $35.
The suggestion that slavery was the principal cause of the Civil War irks many Southerners. The real issue, they argue, was states' rights. Nevertheless, the historical record is clear: Virtually every major political conflict between North and South during the Antebellum period dealt with the problem of slavery on some level.
There are, in fact, hundreds of books that refute the popular idea that slavery was a peripheral concern in the pre-war South. But few, if any, do so more effectively than this riveting new book by William Lee Miller, a professor of political and social thought at the University of Virginia.
Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress concentrates on the so-called ``Gag Rule'' debates that took place in the House of Representatives during the 1830s and '40s. But while the book's primary focus is quite narrow, Miller provides enough background information to put the topic in perspective.
Slavery, Miller notes, had been a fact of life in America since the 17th century, but by the 1830s it had become an integral part of the South's economic, political and social fabric.
In economic terms, the magnitude of slavery was overwhelming. James Henry Hammond, a congressman from South Carolina, estimated during the debates that the combined value of slaves in the United States was more than $900 million - a phenomenal sum by early 19th century standards.
The institution was equally important on political and social levels. While it is true that most Southerners never owned slaves, the vast majority of Southern leaders did. Moreover, as Miller points out, slaveholders had long dominated national politics.
It was in this context that the Gag Rule Controversy took place. The conflict began in the early 1830s when abolitionists submitted a series of petitions to Congress calling for emancipation in the District of Columbia. (Even abolitionists at the time generally agreed that Congress had no power over slavery in the states.)
Initially, as Miller notes, Northern congressmen had little interest in pressing the petitioners' case.
The tendency was to table the petitions or to send them to committee where they would quickly become buried. As the flood of petitions increased, however, Southern extremists were offended by their very submission. By the spring of 1836, a Southern coalition had pushed through an unprecedented gag rule, which was designed to prevent any further discussion of anti-slavery petitions.
Ironically, the gag rule eventually had the opposite of its intended effect. Northern congressmen - who had previously frowned upon abolitionists - grew increasingly outraged that the right of petition had been abridged.
It was, after all, guaranteed by the First Amendment and had always been regarded as sacrosanct. Nevertheless, because these Northerners were in the minority, the Southerners managed to keep some version of the gag rule in place for nine years.
As Miller makes clear, the rule would have remained in place even longer had it not been for the unrelenting efforts of John Quincy Adams.
The former president, now a congressman, continually defied the new policy. His actions so incensed the slaveholders that they repeatedly tried to censure him. Through a series of brilliant speeches and political maneuvers, however, Adams managed to avoid censure and, ultimately, to have the gag rule rescinded.
In one of the book's many entertaining sections, Adams announces that he has received a petition from slaves. (Most of the petitions up to this point had been from white abolitionists.)
Did slaves, Adams asked, have the right of petition? Needless to say, the question caused an uproar. When the dust had settled, Adams revealed that the signers of the petition had been calling for protection of slavery. The Southerners had just assumed that it was another anti-slavery document.
Adams' revelation did not pacify them, of course. On the contrary, they were all the more outraged at having been ``trifled with.'' It was subsequently suggested that the document had been a hoax. But the point had been made: Censorship can have unintended effects.
Throughout the book, Miller quotes heavily from two precursors to the Congressional Record - the Congressional Globe and the Register of Debates. Although these publications contain reporters' accounts of debates rather than complete transcriptions, they nonetheless capture the drama of the conflict, and the excerpts that Miller has selected make entertaining reading.
In the end, however, this conflict was no political sideshow. It was ``a nation-defining argument,'' Miller writes - a clash between two parts of the founders' legacy. On the one hand there was slavery as ``a rooted institution, growing powerful. On the other hand, there were the Bill of Rights and the ideas of freedom . . . from which it grew.''
Miller has done a wonderful job of bringing this argument to life.
His book is nothing less than essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nation's social and intellectual history. MEMO: Tom Robotham is a historian and writer who lives in Norfolk.
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN EARLE/The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB