Introduction

The gag rule was possibly one of the most controversial rules ever enacted in the House of Representatives. It stated, "Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."¹ It directly violated the constitutional right to petition congress and have one's voice be heard. People in the North as well as people in the South were outraged that slavery was still going on and that their own representatives were trying to silence their efforts to change the status of slavery in their own states as well as in territories and in the District of Columbia.

Women made up a good number of the petitioners to Congress regarding slavery. In fact, as a gentleman in the House of Representatives had counted, stating that, "In relation to the number of the abolitionists at the North, he had taken pains ... to count the names on the abolition memorials. His conclusion was that they were few. The whole number of names was 30,000, of whom fully one-half were females," as can be read in Document 3. In 1936, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society started a large petition campaign along with the New York and Philadelphia female societies. This campaign focused mainly on getting women to sign petitions, and it is said that women were far more successful at petitioning than men, tripling the number of petition names previously recorded by men immediately.²

Women did much to get around the gag rule. They held fundraisers to raise money to help publicize the anti-slavery movement through publications and lectures. Although the sums collected were sometimes small, women still brought the abolitionist message out to the public. Sometimes, they were received in a friendly manner, by fellow abolitionists, but other times, they didn't have such a friendly reception. Their ability to deal with bad situations with indifference and a little hostility at times made them more prepared to circulate petitions.³

As time went on, their tactics changed. In the beginning of the movement, women were expected to be abolitionists and be involved because women were morally superior than men and would naturally join the crusade for what was right. However, they were expected to stay out of the political arena because that belonged solely to men. In the early 1840's, near the end of the gag rule, the subject of petitons changed from simply the abolition of slavery to the dissolution of the union. The northern anti-slavery societies felt that it wasn't right to be associated with the evil south any longer. Also, a variety of issues had been dealt with in petitions, from Texas being barred from the Union, to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and even to the gag rule itself.⁴

Although it can't be said that women ended the gag rule, they certainly did a lot of work to help end the gag rule, and were a major force in abolitionist circles. Their sometimes silent voices ended up being heard in the long run.