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Title: Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress by William Lee Miller ISBN: 0-394-56922-9 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: a revelation
Comment: Arguing About Slavery has a very difficult subject to make live, what William Lee Miller calls the "tedium and sublimity" of republican debate. The historian's duty to be evenhanded even when faced with the moral pit of slavery doesn't make the job any easier. Yet, Miller handles these problems with aplomb and, more, handily succeeds.

At about 500 pages, Arguing About Slavery is concerned with the parliamentary debate and tactics used by pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in the Congress in the 1830's and 40's. It shows how, nearly single handedly, John Quincy Adams insistence on the right to petition exposed the South's determination to controvert the Constitution in its quest to shelter the practice of slavery from congressional criticism. By the time the Congress puts the "gag rule" to rest, Adam's exposé had made abolitionism a powerful and accepted political force in the North.

Miller storytelling skills has the reader discovering the extent of sophistry the pro-slavery forces were willing to go to as they were forced to resort to deeper and deeper hypocrisy. He does this, however, without denigrating the men of the South. Indeed, much of the enjoyment you'll derive from reading Arguing About Slavery will come from the rhetorical skills the Southern Congressmen liberally display throughout.

Although Miller's protagonist is clearly J.Q. Adams, he spends considerable effort on a broad cast of characters, from the original abolitionists and their puritan backgrounds -- the Grimké sisters, Theodore Weld, Elizur Wright, Elijah Lovejoy -- to Adam's allies in the House -- Joshua Giddings, William Slade -- to the pro-slavery giants -- John C. Calhoun, Caleb Cushing, Francis Pinkens -- and moderates like Henry Pinkney (whose gag rule ironically was intended as a compromise) and President Martin Van Buren. If these biographies are not familiar to you, these and others in Arguing About Slavery should be. Miller describes the history and premises of all parties involved, but doesn't interrupt the flow of the tale to do so.

Miller does an incredible job of making the tedium and sublimity of republican debate come alive and at the end of the book you better understand the place of liberty in America's national consciousness, the intellectual forces that led to the Civil War, and the nature of the founders' relationship to the practice of slavery itself. The only criticism I have is that sometimes Miller's rhetoric is a bit too partisan, which reduces the value of the book as ammunition against slavery's apologists, which do still exist. But that has nothing to do with merits of the book as a work of the historical art, which are excellent.

Rating: 5
Summary: It surpassed all expectations
Comment: This is an excellent book, one that surpassed any expectation I might have had for it. And my expectations were high, because the critics spoke so highly of it when it was released. Still, I doubted whether a decade-long legislative battle could carry my interest for 300+ pages. I was wrong. Every page and character was interesting, and the consistent imagery of John Quincy Adams, in the sunset of his political career, battling the southern foes in Congress on a daily basis is an enduring one. Books like this one should be substituted for the dry history curriculum that I had in high school.

Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best American History books I've read this yr
Comment: Miller has taken a little-known set of antebellum incidents and made them live. The book is both a scholarly work and highly readable for the layman. Miller provides a modicum of "modern parallels" and editorial asides that would, if they weren't so intelligent, be inappropriate. As it is, his observations along these lines as the book progresses makes the work more interesting rather than less. This book is more interesting that last year's biography of John Quincy Adams, which I also enjoyed.

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