In a recent Truth Social post, Donald Trump accused the Smithsonian of being “OUT OF CONTROL,” saying it focuses too much on America’s flaws, slavery, and racial injustice. There’s only one problem: a sanitized version of American greatness leaves little room for the truth about slavery and racial injustice. In other words, Trump’s preferred version of history is not America’s actual history.
This impulse to suppress uncomfortable truths about slavery is not new. It is part of a long tradition in American politics, one that dates back to the nation’s founding and gained traction in the 1830s when Congress passed the infamous “gag rule,” banning the discussion of slavery on the House floor. Then, as now, the goal was not just to avoid conflict—it was to erase dissent and avoid a moral reckoning with slavery.
To understand what is at stake, we must revisit the original gag rule and the man who fought to overturn it: John Quincy Adams, America’s sixth president.
After losing reelection election to Andrew Jackson in 1828, Adams did something remarkable. Instead of retiring, he ran for Congress, and for the next 17 years, he was a relentless advocate for the right to petition the issue of slavery.
Read More: The History of Abolitionism Shows How One Person Can Help Spark a Movement
In the 1830s, constituent services did not exist, there were no local congressional offices, no email contact forms, and no staffers operating the phones. The best and only way an American citizen could “petition the government for a redress of grievances” was to send a petition to their representative, to be read on the floor of the House. Petitions would then be referred to the appropriate committee, entered into the record and printed, or, as was often the case, tabled.
By 1836, abolitionists’ petitions were arriving at the Capitol by the wagonload. Prayers for an end to slavery were signed by tens of thousands of citizens from the Northern states, many of whom were women…
