Arguing About Slavery
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Arguing About Slavery
| Full title | Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress |
|---|---|
| Author | William Lee Miller |
| Published | 1996 |
| Pages | 577 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | William Lee Miller on the eight-year fight over the House gag rule, with John Quincy Adams refusing to stop reading antislavery petitions into the record. A book about procedure as a weapon, and about how a question that cannot be discussed eventually becomes the only question. |
Where I heard about it
- A crowd-sourced X thread — in the replies to @typesfast’s question “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” (the thread, June 2025), listed as “Arguing About Slavery — Miller”; the full set of replies is on What’s the best history book… (tweet).
Connections
- Power — parliamentary procedure as the terrain of the fight.
- Institutions — Congress trying and failing to rule a subject out of bounds.
- Language of Discourse — the gag rule as an explicit attempt to control what could be said.
- Battle Cry of Freedom — where the argument went next, named in the same thread.
- What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.