Civil Liberties and the Antislavery Controversy

• Author: William M. Wiecek
• Pages: 384-385

Page 384

Two civil liberties issues linked the freedom of communication enjoyed by whites with the cause of the slave: the mails controversy of 1835?1837 and the gag controversy of 1836?1844.

By 1835, southern political leaders, anxiety-ridden by threats to the security of slavery, were in no mood to tolerate a propaganda initiative of the American Anti-Slavery Society, which began weekly mailings of illustrated antislavery periodicals throughout the South. The first mailing was seized and burned by a Charleston, South Carolina, mob, an action condoned by Postmaster General Amos Kendall. President ANDREW JACKSON recommended legislation that would prohibit mailings of antislavery literature to the slave states. Senator JOHN C. CALHOUN denounced this as a threat to the SOVEREIGNTY of the states, while some northern political leaders objected to it on the grounds that it inhibited the FIRST AMENDMENT rights of FREEDOM OF SPEECH and FREEDOM OF THE PRESS of their constituents. In ensuing debates, the POSTAL POWER under Article I, section 8, and the First Amendment became the center of debates on Jackson's counterproposal, which would have mandated interstate cooperation in suppressing abolitionist mailings. Ironically, in 1836, Congress apparently inadvertently enacted legislation making it a misdemeanor to delay delivery of mail. But by 1837, abolitionists abandoned the campaign for more promising antislavery ventures.

Page 385

The gag controversy proved to be longer-lived. Opponents of SLAVERY had been petitioning Congress ever since 1790 on various subjects relating to slavery, such as the international and interstate slave trade. Such petitions were routinely either tabled or shunted to the oblivion of committees. Southerners in Congress were extremely inhospitable to such petitions, especially when the Anti-Slavery Society discontinued its mails campaign in favor of a stepped-up petition and memorial drive in 1836 focusing on the abolition of slavery in the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. To cope with the resulting flood of unwelcome petitions, Calhoun proposed that each house, acting under the rules of proceedings clause of Article I, section 5, refuse to receive petitions concerning slavery, rather than receiving and then tabling them. More moderate congressmen, however, adopted alternate resolutions providing for automatic tabling of such petitions. This only stimulated the antislavery societies to more successful petition...