Defense of Free Speech

John Quincy Adams
9 pages (2007/1842); 160KB download
WOWIO Books; ISBN: WOWIO-00224

DESCRIPTION

This article demonstrates how John Quincy Adams fought the efforts of pro-slavery legislators to limit legislation. Southern Congressmen in 1836 passed a "gag rule" that let the House of Representatives automatically table petitions opposing slavery. Adams argues such practices totally suppress the right of petition to all the people of the Union and that accurate reporting of events in Congress was important.

Adams notes that "in some parts of the South, all papers having the taint of Abolition, or containing Abolition matter in them, were suppressed and prevented from circulating." Censorship or false reporting "was one of the strongest proofs of a great conspiracy on the part of the Southern portion of the Union to extend the law of slavery throughout the free States."

Adams succeeded in having the 1836 "gag rule" repealed in 1844.