title: Arguing about Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress
author:  William Lee Miller 
description: 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, <b>Arguing About Slavery</b> endows history with majestic sweep, heroism, and moral weight.<br /><br /><br /><br />"Dramatic, immediate, intensely readable, fascinating and often moving."--New York Times Book Review
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # American Eloquence, Volume II.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Various
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED VOLUME II.
  
  
  
  
  
  V. —THE ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE
  
  
    
  RUFUS KING,
  
  
    
  WILLIAM PINKNEY,
  
  
    
  WENDELL PHILLIPS,
  
  
    
  JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
  
  
    
  JOHN C. CALHOUN,
  
  
    
  DANIEL WEBSTER,
  
  
    
  HENRY CLAY,
  
  
    
  WENDELL PHILLIPS,
  
  
    
  CHARLES SUMNER,
  
  
  * * *
  
      
  
  Produced by David Widger
  
  
  
  
  
  AMERICAN ELOQUENCE
  
  
  STUDIES IN AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY
  
  
  Edited with Introduction by Alexander Johnston
  
  
  Reedited by James Albert Woodburn
  
  
  Volume II. (of 4)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED VOLUME
  
  
  II.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  The second volume of the American Eloquence is devoted exclusively
  
  
  to the Slavery controversy. The new material of the revised edition
  
  
  includes Rufus King and William Pinkney on the Missouri Question; John
  
  
  Quincy Adams on the War Power of the Constitution over Slavery; Sumne