ADAMS AND OTHER critics of slavery became such a thorn in the side of the Democratic majority, and the petitions, memorials and remonstrances they brought from antislavery groups such an obstruction to legislation on other topics, that the House adopted a gag rule regarding antislavery petitions. Such petitions would be tabled without discussion or consideration
Adams protested the gag rule as unconstitutional and immoral. The First Amendment guaranteed the right of petition, he pointed out. And by silencing antislavery petitioners, the gag rule kept the House from confronting the overriding moral issue of the age. Adams refused to obey the rule, finding one means and then another to introduce the petitions.
A group of Southern congressmen proposed to censure Adams. One of the first of several measures drafted for the purpose resolved: “That John Quincy Adams, a member from the State of Massachusetts, by his attempts to introduce into this House a petition from slaves, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, committed an outrage on the rights and feelings of a large portion of the people of this Union; a flagrant contempt of the dignity of this House; and, by extending to slaves a privilege only belonging to freemen, directly invites the slave population to insurrection; and that the said member be forthwith called to the bar of the House, to be censured by the Speaker.”
Adams deflected this thrust by pointing out that he had not in fact introduced a petition from slaves for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, worthy though that end was. He had merely inquired whether a petition from slaves, as opposed to petitions from voters, fell under the gag rule.
The Southerners answered the question with another censure resolution: “That the right of petition does not belong to the slaves of this Union, and that no petition from them can be presented to this House, without derogating from the rights of the slaveholding states and endangering the integrity of the Union.” The resolution added: “That any member who shall hereafter present any such petition to the House ought to be considered as regardless of the feelings of the House, the rights of the South, and an enemy to the Union.”
Adams couldn’t contain his disgust. “Regardless of the feelings of the House!” he sneered. “What have the feelings of the House to do with the free agency of a member in the discharge of his duty? One of the most sacred duties of a member is to present the petitions committed to his charge, a duty which he cannot refuse or neglect to perform, without violating his oath to support the Constitution of the United States.
“Regardless of the rights of the South!” he continued, his temper rising. “What are the rights of the South? What is the South?” The South consisted of masters, nearly all white; of slaves, entirely black; and of other persons of both races. But it was only the rights of the first group that were being considered by the authors of the gag rule. “The rights of the South, then, here mean the rights of the masters of slaves, which, to describe them by an inoffensive word, I will call the rights of mastery.” Adams acknowledged that these rights were recognized implicitly by the Constitution. “But they are rights incompatible with the inalienable rights of all mankind, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence; incompatible with the fundamental principles of the constitutions of all the free states of the Union.
“An enemy to the Union!” he went on. “For presenting a petition! An enemy to the Union!” Adams shook his head in wonder that the South was reaching so far, trampling the Constitution and invoking the specter of treason as employed by tyrants. The gag rule was wholly unprecedented. “Since the existence of the Constitution of the United States, there has never before been an example of an attempt in the House of Representatives to punish one of its members for words spoken by him in the performance of his duty.” And it was another sign that slavery had corrupted the essence of republicanism. “Slavery has already had too deep and too baleful an influence upon the affairs and upon the history of this Union. It can never operate but as a slow poison to the morals of any community infected with it. Ours is infected with it to the vitals.”
A member from Virginia had objected to Adams’s effort to introduce a petition from some colored women of Fredericksburg. “The gentleman went further,” Adams said, “and made the objection that I had presented a petition from women of infamous character—prostitutes, I think he called them.”
The member interrupted: “It was not so. When the gentleman presented that petition, which I knew came from mulattoes in a slave state, I meant to confine my objection to petitions of mulattoes or free negroes in the Southern states. I meant to rescue the ladies of Fredericksburg from the stigma of having signed such a petition. Sir, no lady in Fredericksburg would sign such a petition.”
Adams almost snarled: “With respect to the question what female is entitled to the character of a lady, I should be sorry to enter into a discussion here.” Yet he denied having used the word in question. “When I have presented these petitions, I have usually said they were from women,and that, to my heart, is a dearer appellation than ladies.” Adams was mistaken in this case; he had in fact written the phrase “ladies of Fredericksburg” on the petition. But he wasn’t going to let his opponent off the hook. “The gentleman from Virginia says he knows these women, and that they are infamous. Howdoes the gentleman know it?”
Laughter rippled through the House.
The member defended himself. “I did not say that I knew the women personally,” he explained. “I knew from others that the character of one of them was notoriously bad.”
“I am glad the gentleman now says he does not know these women, for if he had not disclaimed that knowledge, I might have asked who it was that made these women infamous, whether it was those of their own color or their masters,” Adams rejoined. “I have understood that there are those among the colored population of slaveholding states who bear the image of their masters.”
The House erupted again, but this time in Southern anger. Adams was unfazed. A member from South Carolina had observed that a lawmaker in his state who proposed abolition was subject to grand jury indictment. Adams sneered again. “Did the gentleman think he could frighten me from my purpose by his threat of a grand jury? If that was his object, let me tell him, he mistook his man. I am not to be frightened from the discharge of a duty by the indignation of the gentleman from South Carolina, nor by all the grand juries in the universe.”
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