Arguing About Slavery

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.