gag rule

A rule, as in a legislative body, limiting discussion or debate on an issue. Also called gag law.

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In 1836 the House of Representatives established a “gag rule” to try to stop citizens from submitting antislavery petitions. Previously, the House and Senate had simply referred such petitions to committee without ever acting on them. But when petitioners called for Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which Congress supervised, Southern representatives sought to put an end to this “agitation.” Together with sympathetic Northerners, they voted 117 to 68 to adopt a “gag rule” that required the House to lay antislavery petitions on the table (meaning to put them aside) immediately, without printing them, referring them to committee, or in any way debating them. Representative John Quincy Adams (Whig-Massachusetts) led the opposition to what he called an unconstitutional attempt to suppress the freedom to petition. Adams lost repeated battles and came close to being censured. By 1844, enough Northerners had changed their position, and the House voted 105 to 80 to repeal the “gag rule.”

See also Adams, John Quincy; Petition, citizens' right to

Sources

• Leonard L. Richards, The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)

Gag rule is a parliamentary device that permits legislative bodies to suppress or shorten debate. This rule was used by the House of Representatives from 1836 to 1844 to avoid debating the thousands of antislavery petitions being sent to northern congressmen. Southern legislators had come to interpret any debate of slavery as a hostile act, and many northerners, though personally opposed to slavery, were prepared to avoid the topic, either out of a belief that Congress had no rights in the matter or simply in the interests of political harmony. The petition movement, sponsored by the American Anti-Slavery Society, enraged the southerners and made it more difficult for northern politicians to remain silent. In addition, because the petitions focused on the District of Columbia, where Congress was the sole authority, the argument that slavery was a matter for the states to decide did not apply.

The Senate rejected the southerners' proposal that petitioning be prohibited but preserved harmony by denying each petition as it arrived. The House, however, adopted a gag rule on May 18, 1836, whereby all petitions related to slavery would automatically be tabled. This rule, which required renewal at each session, was allowed to lapse briefly when Congress opened in December 1837, but the immediate presentation of petitions on the House floor led to an even stricter gag rule, which was renewed annually for the next six years. Former president John Quincy Adams (now a congressman) had fought the gag rule from the first, and widespread public protests reinforced his arguments. Gradually, more and more northern congressmen came to feel that, whatever one's position on slavery, limiting citizens' right of petition was indefensible. In December 1844, the gag rule was rescinded.

In fact, the abolitionists had gained more from the gag rule than they had lost. They had frequently warned that the "slave power's" growing control of the federal government would ultimately destroy all Americans' liberties. By its demonstration of how efforts to placate the South led directly to the abridgment of constitutional rights, the gag rule made converts even among those who did not favor abolition.

See also Abolitionist Movement; House of Representatives.

A rule, regulation, or law that prohibits debate or discussion of a particular issue.

Between 1836 and 1844, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a series of resolutions and rules that banned petitions calling for the abolition of slavery. Known as gag rules, these measures effectively tabled antislavery petitions without submitting them to usual House procedures. Public outcry over the gag rules ultimately aided the antislavery cause, and the fierce House debate concerning their future anticipated later conflicts over slavery.

The submission of petitions to Congress has been a feature of the U.S. political system ever since its inception. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees "the right of the people … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." First used in England, petitions have been considered an important means for the people to communicate grievances to their representatives or other public officials.

When the first gag rule was instituted in 1836, House protocol required that the first thirty days of each session of Congress be devoted to the reading of petitions from constituents. After those thirty days, petitions were read in the House every other Monday. Each petition was read aloud, printed, and assigned to an appropriate committee, which could choose to address or ignore it. This traditional procedure had been interrupted in 1835, when the House began to receive a large number of petitions advocating the abolition of slavery. Many of the petitions were organized by the American Anti-Slavery Society, which had formed in 1833.

Southern representatives, many of whom were slave owners and entertained no thoughts of abolishing slavery, were outraged by the antislavery petitions. In December 1835, southerners, uniting with northern Democrats, won a vote to table a petition that called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Breaking established precedent, the pro-slavery faction also won a vote to deny the petition its usual discussion, printing, and referral to committee.

This procedure for the "gagging" of abolition petitions was made into a formal resolution by the House on May 26, 1836: "All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table and … no further action whatever shall be had thereon." The resolution incited strong opposition from many northerners, who perceived it as a violation of their time-honored civil rights. John Quincy Adams, a former president and now a representative from Massachusetts, emerged as the leader of an effort to revoke the new resolution. John C. Calhoun (D-S.C.), although a member of the Senate rather than the House, orchestrated the battle to preserve it.

The pro-slavery faction succeeded in renewing the gag resolution, which expired at the end of each session of Congress, in both sessions of the Twenty-fifth Congress (1837-39). On January 28, 1840, it succeeded again when it won a vote to turn the resolution into House Rule 21 (in later versions, Rules 23 and 25):

No petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or Territory, or the slave trade between the States or Territories of the United States, in which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in any way whatever.

As a formal House rule rather than a resolution, the gag rule was now a permanent part of House procedure and did not have to be renewed by vote each session.

This new gag rule provoked even stronger opposition. Whereas the previous gag resolution tabled antislavery petitions after they were received, the new gag rule did not allow petitions to be received. It was also more extreme than the Senate's approach, which was to receive such petitions but answer them in the negative. As a result of these changes, northerners who had previously supported the gag now joined Adams in opposing it. Several years later, on December 3, 1844, those opposed to the gag rule finally succeeded in rescinding it.

The term gag rule was also applied to regulations issued by the administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1988. These regulations (53 Fed. Reg. 2923-2924) banned all abortion counseling by employees of the four thousand family planning clinics funded by the federal Title X Program of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C.A. §§ 300-300a-6). The regulations also prohibited referrals to clinics that perform abortions. In one of his first acts as president, Bill Clinton revoked the gag rule by executive order on January 22, 1993 (58 Fed. Reg. 7455, 1993 WL 2406 [Pres.]), allowing clinics to counsel pregnant women on all family planning options, including abortion.

See: Congress of the United States.

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