Description

Book Synopsis
In the 1830s slavery was so deeply entrenched that it could not even be discussed in Congress, which had enacted a 'gag rule' to ensure that anti-slavery petitions would be summarily rejected. This stirring book chronicles the parliamentary battle to bring 'the peculiar institution' into the national debate, a battle that some historians have called 'the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy.' The campaign to make slavery officially and respectably debatable was waged by John Quincy Adams who spent nine years defying gags, accusations of treason, and assassination threats. In the end he made his case through a combination of cunning and sheer endurance. Telling this story with a brilliant command of detail, Arguing About Slavery endows history with majestic sweep, heroism, and moral weight.



'Dramatic, immediate, intensely readable, fascinating and often moving.'--New York Times Book Review

Arguing about Slavery John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress

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    A Paperback by William Lee Miller

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      View other formats and editions of Arguing about Slavery John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress by William Lee Miller

      Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 1/12/1998 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780679768449, 978-0679768449
      ISBN10: 0679768440

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      In the 1830s slavery was so deeply entrenched that it could not even be discussed in Congress, which had enacted a 'gag rule' to ensure that anti-slavery petitions would be summarily rejected. This stirring book chronicles the parliamentary battle to bring 'the peculiar institution' into the national debate, a battle that some historians have called 'the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy.' The campaign to make slavery officially and respectably debatable was waged by John Quincy Adams who spent nine years defying gags, accusations of treason, and assassination threats. In the end he made his case through a combination of cunning and sheer endurance. Telling this story with a brilliant command of detail, Arguing About Slavery endows history with majestic sweep, heroism, and moral weight.



      'Dramatic, immediate, intensely readable, fascinating and often moving.'--New York Times Book Review

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