National Debate

In Congress, the Seminole War was finally starting to attract attention. The gag rule remained in effect, prohibiting discussions of slavery, but Congress still had to debate funding for the war. On February 9, 1841, Joshua Reed Giddings, a fiery antislavery Congressman from Ohio, followed in the footsteps of John Quincy Adams in his attempts to flaunt the gag rule. Using parliamentary rules to brilliant effect, Giddings delivered a three-hour diatribe against the war that was simultaneously a ringing indictment of slavery. Peppering his speech with historical references to the Black Seminoles, Giddings described the war as the prostitution of the federal army "to the base purpose of leading on an organized company of Negro catchers."