PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSMEN AND THE
:0836 GAG RULE: A QUANTITATIVE NOTE
By GORDON M. WEINER*
Pf HE aim of the three Pinckney Resolutions, known as the 1836
Gag Rule, was to choke off debate on the abolitionist petitions
in Congress. These resolutions were passed on May 25 and 26,
18,36, and maintained:
-That Congress possesses no constitutional authority
to interfere, in any way, with the institution of slavery in
any of the states of this confederacy.
That Congress ought not to interfere, in any way, with
slavery in the District of Columbia.
*
*
*
That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions
or papers, relating in any way to the subject of slavery,
or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being printed or
referred, be laid upon the table, and that no further action
whatever shall be had thereon.'
It has been argued that the reaction to these resolutions exhibited
the first sectional division in Congress, that is: the abolitionist
petitions, and the attempts to silence them produced the first in
a series of North-South splits over the subject of slavery. A related hypothesis postulates that the Whigs were trying to obstruct
the functioning of a Democratic Congress and to sectionally divide
the Democratic Party. The Democrats pushed through the
Pinckney Resolutions in an attempt to retain their party unity
and to end the congressional disruption which was caused by the
debates over the petitions. 2
"'The author is an Assistant Professor of History at Arizona State University at Tempe, Arizona. He would like to thank Professor Lee Benson for
providing the direction and encouragement for this study, and the InterUniversity Consortium for Political Research: Congressional Roll Call
1'roject for making the quantitative data available.
iNiles' Weekly Register, Volume 50, 248.
2For a statement of both the sectional and political hypotheses see: Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, The Anti-Slavery Impulse (New York, 1933), 109-146;
335
336
PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY
These hypotheses have been offered without an examination of
the way in which the congressmen voted on the forty-three motions pertaining to the petition controversy. Such an examination
is certainly the first step toward the resolution of the debate. It
should show, at the most elementary level, whether the votes were
cast on a party or sectional basis. 3 This essay will deal with an
analysis of the voting behavior of the Pennsylvania delegation in
the House of Representatives on those forty-three motions pertaining to the petition debate.
In terms of the sectional hypothesis, one would expect the
Representatives from Pennsylvania to favor the abolitionist cause,
and therefore oppose the attempts to gag the anti-slavery petitions.
Out of the forty-three roll call votes taken during the petition
controversy, the Whigs and Democrats from Pennsylvania voted
in complete agreement only five times. This still does not preclude
the possibility that there was some area of basic agreement. To
arrive at a mnore definite conclusion, the votes on the three
Pinckney Resolutions can be examined. On the first Pinckney
resolution, denying the right of Congress to interfere with slavery
in any state, twenty-three Congressmen voted for it, while three
were opposed and one was absent or not voting. This would
hardly be a display of the desired sectional division. The second
resolution, maintaining that Congress ought not to interfere with
slavery in the District of Columbia, received the votes of fourteen
Pennsylvania representatives, ten opposed it, and three were
absent or abstained. Once again, such voting behavior makes it
difficult to assert that Northern congressmen voted for the abolitionist cause. The final Pinckney resolution, which provided for
gagging the abolitionist petitions, resulted in a vote of ten in favor,
thirteen against, and three absent or abstaining. Thus the voting
pattern of the Pennsylvania delegation contradicts the notion that
the petition controversy divided the Congress along sectional lines.
If one accepts as a premise that Pennsylvania would vote as a
for a presentation of the sectional hypothesis see: Russel B. Nye, Fettered
Freedom, Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 183o-i86o (East
Lansing, Michigan, 1949), 34-54.
'Joel H. Silby, The Shrine of Party (Pittsburgh, 1967); Thomas B.
Alexander, Sectional Stress and Party Strength (Nashville, Tenn., 1967);
and Allan G. Bogue, "Bloc and Party in the United States Senate: 186'1863," Civil War History, XIII (September, 1967), 221-241, all show the
importance of such analysis.
THE 1836 GAG RULE
337
Northern state, the sectional hypothesis would demand that at
leist a substantial majority of the delegation oppose the Pinckney
Rcsolutions. Clearly, this was not the case.
At first glance, voting behavior of the Pennsylvania delegation
tends to support the theory that party interests guided the voting
diring the petition controversy. On the forty-three roll call votes
taklen during the petition debate, Pennsylvania Democrats voted
as follows:
No. of roll call votes
23
Deviations fromt
0
5
1
4
4
1
4
2
3
4
5
party vote
Thus, the Pennsylvania Democrats had five or less deviations from
the party vote on forty-one of the forty-three roll call ballots.
The Pennsylvania Whigs appear to show even more party
influence in the determination of their votes:
NVo. of roll call votes
Deviations from party vote
18
8
9
0
1
2
4
2
2
3
4
5
The Whigs showed five or less deviations on all forty-three roll
call votes which pertained to the petition controversy.
The apparent conclusion is that party was of greater importance
than section. However, there is an interesting correlation between
the voting records of the Pennsylvania Whigs and Democrats. On
eighteen occasions the Whigs were in complete agreement. Of
those eighteen votes, there were five when both the Whigs and the
Democrats voted the same way. There was not one roll call when
all of the Whigs voted one way, and all of the Democrats, the
other. Therefore, the voting records would tend to downgrade the
iheory that the positions taken during the petitions controversy
338
PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY
were dictated strictly by party interests. At best, the members of
the delegation were loosely controlled by-their parties. On at least
five occasions (11.5% of all votes), state interests superseded the
more narrow party lines.
The voting records of the Pennsylvania congressmen show al
interesting development when the three Pinckney Resolutions are
examined. On the first resolution, fifteen of the Democrats voted
in the affirmative, while two abstained or were absent. Six out
of the ten Whigs also favored this resolution, while three were
opposed to it and one was absent or abstained. If the Whig Party
was pursuing a policy of disruption of the Congress by splitting
the Democrats on sectional issues, then it is clear that the Pennsylvania Whigs were not adhering to this policy if it indeed existed.
The second Pinckney resolution saw a more pronounced split
in the voting between the two parties. There were fourteen Democrats who favored it, two who were opposed, and one who was
absent or abstained. Eight of the Whigs opposed the resolution
and two abstained or were absent. This apparent party division
in the voting also occurred on Pinckney's third resolution. Ten
Democrats voted "yes," four voted "no," and two abstained or
were absent. Nine of the Whigs were opposed to it, and only one
abstained or absented himself.
The conclusion which might be drawn from the analysis of the
vote on the Pinckney resolutions is that the second and third
resolutions were probable party issues, while the first resolution
was not.
There were four men included among the Whigs who might be
grouped separately. Some biographical evidence exists which points
out that prior to joining with the Whig Party, they were AntiMasons. These men were Edward Darlington, Harmar Denny,
William Heister, and David Potts, Jr. Out of the forty-three roll
call votes taken between December 16, 1835, and June 1, 1836,
which applied to the petition controversy, these men were in complete agreement twenty-six times. On another thirteen ballots
there was only one who opposed the positions taken by the other
three. There were only four votes when an even split occurred
within the quartet. Thus, it appears that the Pennsylvania WhigAnti-Masons formed a more cohesive unit than either the Demrocrats or the regular Whigs.
THE 1836 GAG RULE
339
The data which is available also permits an analysis of voting
Blieavior by what may be termed constituency pressure. Here, the
attempt has been made to discover whether voting in the petition
controversy, especially when deviations from the party line occturred, was conditioned by the "safeness" of the representative's
district.' Was a representative who was elected by a narrow
majority more likely to follow the party line, than one who received a much larger margin of victory from his constituents?
CONGRESSIONAL MAJORITIES5
Representative
.41
C
Thomas M. T. McKennan
Jesse Miller
John Banks
Joseph Henderson
(W)
Harmar Denny
(W)
(W)
(W)
(W)
(D)
(D)
(D)
(W)
(D)
(D)
Mathias Morris
WVilliam Clarck
William Heister
Job Mann
Jacob Fry, Jr.
Henry Logan
David Potts, Jr.
Michael W. Ash
John Laporte
Andrew Beaumont
Edward Darlington
Andrew Buchanan
George Chambers
James Harper
Edward B. Hubley
Joseph R. Ingersoll
John Klingensmith, Jr.
John Galbraith
Joel B. Sutherland
Joseph B. Anthony
Samuel S. Harrison
David D. Wagener
Henry A. P. Muhlenburg
(D)
(W)
(D)
(D)
(W)
(D)
(W)
(W)
(D)
(W)
(D)
(D)
(D)
(D)
(D)
(D)
(D)
21
13
24
14
22
6
10
4
18
5
11
4
3
17
15
4
20
12
2
8
2
19
25
1
16
23
7
9
134
210
260
409
452
450
530
614
520
718
630
250
1160
900
935
1500
1042
1234
1840
1186
1840
1420
1612
1436
2337
1900
2307
2684
5272
7620
5262
8069
6404
6381
6255
7670
6473
6812
5837
2400
10357
7503
6953
8775
5815
6836
9299
6126
9299
7298
2
3
5
5
7
7
8
8
8
10
10
10
11
12
13
17
18
18
19
19
19
19
4
2
1
8
5
5
3
5
1
3
1
5
4
4
5
4
5
10
5
4
9
1
7642
21
2
6126
8673
5509
6320
6948
23
27
34
36
39
0
2
2
0
4
'David Donald, The Politics of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge, La., 1965),
16-52, has argued this was an extremely important factor affecting Congres.onal activity during Reconstruction.
'Data assembled from: Stella K. Scheidhaver, "The Congressional Elechon of 1834 in Pennsylvania" (M.A. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1934).
340
PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY
The table shows that there is little or no association betwcen
the size of the majority by which a representative was elected and
the number of times he deviated from his party's position. It can
be argued that these deviations did not imply adoption of a position against the party. This would be valid if one does not accept
the assumption that every one of the votes was a party issue. If
the premise that every one of the votes constituted a party issue
is accepted, then one must attempt to find an explanation for the
deviations. While some aspects of constituency and party machine
pressure can be eliminated by the table, as yet, there is no firm
explanation available.
The quantitative analysis of the voting behavior of Pennslvania Congressmen during the 1836 petition controversy indicates that party considerations were relatively more important
than sectional ones. However, even in the case of Pennsylvania,
this is not a clear-cut situation. There are many aspects in the area
of political motivation that remain unclear. A deeper analysis of subgroups within the Pennsylvania delegation must be made. Certainly
an extension of this type of study to all of the Congressional delegations would go a long way in resolving the issue of the relative
importance of party and section in the passage of the 1836 Gag
Rule.