Silenced Petitions: The Gag Rule and Angelina Grimké, 1836–1844

A Rule Against Reading Petitions

1A bill becomes a law by a long road. A member of Congress introduces it, a committee studies it, and both the House and the Senate must pass the same version. The President then signs it or vetoes it, and Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in each house. The Constitution also says that "each House may determine the rules of its proceedings." A rule like this needs only a vote of that one chamber, and it governs how the chamber works rather than what citizens must do.

2The First Amendment protects the right of the people "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In the 1830s, antislavery societies gathered signatures on petitions asking Congress to end slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, which Congress governed. Historians estimate the petitions carried hundreds of thousands of signatures. Members of Congress usually presented the petitions sent from their own districts, so petitioning was also a way to contact officials directly. Many signers were women. In 1838 no state let women vote or serve on juries.

3In May 1836 the House adopted a rule that every petition about slavery would be "laid on the table," or set aside without being printed or debated. Many Southern members said Congress had no power over slavery and that the petitions insulted their states. Some Northern members also voted for the rule to keep the issue from dividing their party. The House renewed the rule each session, and in 1840 it made a standing rule, Rule 21, refusing even to receive such petitions. Supporters of the rule also said the flood of petitions wasted the House's time. Opponents called it the gag rule.

4John Quincy Adams, a former President, had been elected to the House by Massachusetts voters in 1830. He argued that the gag rule violated the First Amendment, and he kept presenting petitions from citizens. Many Northern voters came to see the rule as an attack on their own rights as well as on enslaved people. In 1842 some members tried to censure him, but the effort failed after days of debate, and his district kept re-electing him. On December 3, 1844, the House voted 108 to 80 to end the gag rule.

Adapted from Angelina Grimké's speech to the Massachusetts legislature, 1838

1I stand before you on behalf of the 20,000 women of Massachusetts whose names are on the petitions before you. These petitions deal with slavery, a political subject, and it has often been said that women have nothing to do with politics.

2Are we strangers in our own country because we are women? Do we lose our citizenship because we are the mothers, wives and daughters of a mighty people? The right of petition is the only political right women have. Let it not be taken from us.

3I do not speak of slavery from books alone. I was born and raised in the South, and I have seen it with my own eyes. I ask you to hear these petitions and to act on them.