pose of? Each of us must suggest such mode as we think most correct, and none can justly be liable to any such charge. If there is any wrong, it is found in those who, in such a state of public feeling, will press their petitions upon us. The petitions are forwarded to members who feel it their duty to present them; when presented, others think it their duty to demand the question whether they shall be received. Is it true that, on this delicate subject, every officer of the federal or State Governments can express his opinion as to what it is best to do, and that a Senator dare not express his opinion without being liable to censure? I hope not.

This is a delicate subject: would to God it had not been pressed upon us; but, as it is placed hero by the petitioners, we must dispose of it. To enable us to do so, we must think upon it, and we may tell each other what we think, and our reasons for so thinking. It is not by speaking upon it we will be likely to do mischief. Every thing depends upon the temper with which we express our opinions, and the sentiments we advance. My wish and aim is, if I can do no good, to do no harm; and if I believed in what I propose to say I would utter a sentiment from which mischief would be produced, I would close my lips, take my seat, and content myself with yea or nay to every question proposed by others, leaving every person at liberty to conjecture the reasons for my votes; but entertaining no fear of that kind, I must ask permission to state, as briefly as I can, some of the reasons for the course I shall pursue. In doing this, I shall not address myself to Senators coming from either the East or the West, the North or the South, in particular, but to the Senate, the whole Senate, because, if it is desired, as I believe it is, that we should remain together as one people, secure, prosperous, happy, and contented, the whole country, every section of it, having a deep interest in this matter, this agitation and excite

ment must cease.

What, then, ought we to do, as most likely to put an end to those angry feelings which now prevail?

In my opinion, we should refuse to receive these petitions. It is a mere question of expediency what disposition we shall make of them. All who have yet spoken admit that Congress has no power whatever over slavery in the respective States. It is settled. Whether slavery is right or wrong, we have now no power to consider or discuss it. Suppose, then, a petition were presented to abolish slavery in the States, would we receive it? Assuredly we ought not, because it would be asking us to act upon a subject over which we have no power.

not.

But these are petitions asking Congress to abolish slavery in this District. Have we the power? I think I consider the argument of the honorable Senator from Virginia, [Mr. LEIGH,] upon that point, conclusive. It has not been answered, and I do not believe it can be. Slaves are property in this District-Congress cannot take private property, even for public use, without making just compensation to the owner. No fund is provided by the constitution to pay for slaves which may be liberated, and the constitution never gives Congress the power to act upon any subject, without, at the same time, furnishing the means for its accomplishment. To liberate slaves is not taking them for public use. It is declaring that neither individuals nor the public shall use them. I will not weaken the honorable member's argument by going over it.

This District was intended as the place where the great business of the nation should be transacted for the good of the whole. Congress, under the constitution, is placed here to legislate upon those subjects enumerated and specified in the constitution, that we might be able to protect ourselves, and the officers residing here, and be out of the reach of the laws of any State. It was

[MARCH 2, 1836.

never intended that we should have any local legislation, except such as would meet the wants and wishes of the people residing within the ten miles square. We should never permit this place to be converted into a political workshop, where plans would be devised, or carried into operation, that will have the effect of destroying the interest of any of the States.

Members of Congress, executive and judicial officers, were to come from any and every section of the Union, from the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States, and their property was to be as secure here, in this ten miles square, as it was in the States from which they respectively came. They would bring their habits and their domestic servants with them; those from the nonslaveholding States their hired servants, and those from the slaveholding States their slaves. And who can believe it was intended to vest the power in Congress to liberate them if brought within the District?

Again: The right of property in slaves in the States is sacred, and beyond the power of Congress to interfere with, in any respect; yet, if it be conceded that we have the power to liberate them in the District, we can as effectually ruin the owners as if we had the power to liberate slaves in the States. By abolishing slavery here, we not only make a place of refuge for runaways, but we produce a spirit of discontent and rebellion in the minds of slaves in the neighboring States, which will soon spread over all, and which cannot fail to compel owners to destroy their own slaves, to preserve their own lives and those of their wives and children. I beseech gentlemen to look at this matter as it is. Take, for illustration, the case of a small planter in Mississippi, living on his own land, with thirty slaves to cultivate it. Suddenly it is discovered that one half of them are concerned in a plot to destroy the lives of their master, his family, and neighbors, with a view to produce their freedom, and immediately, with or without law, they are tucked up and hanged. The man is thus deprived of his property without any chance for an indemnity, besides the disquiet and anxiety of mind occasioned by a loss of confidence in his remaining slaves. It cannot have been intended that Congress, by acting on this subject, should have a power thus to occasion a destruction of slave property.

To me it seems that we ought to treat those petitions precisely as we would do if they prayed us to abolish slavery in one of the States. We have no more power to abolish it here than we have there. I think, in either case, we ought to refuse to receive them. I hold that, if the petitioners ask us to do that which we have no power to do, or to do that which will be productive of a great and lasting mischief, we not only have the right, but that it is our duty, to refuse to receive them.

By the constitution, no man can be held to answer for a criminal charge but by presentment or indictment. Suppose a petition presented here, alleging that some citizen in the District had been guilty of a crime, and that he was so influential that he could not be reached by the ordinary forms of law in court, and therefore we are asked to pass a bill of attainder, ought we to receive the petition? Suppose a petition to ask us to pass a law to prohibit any member of this body from making a speech against the prayer of the petitioners, would we receive it? Suppose a petition to be offered asking us to establish a particular religion in this District, or to prohibit any publication in a newspaper on the subject of abolishing slavery, unless it was previously approved of by a committee, would we, ought we, to receive any such petition? I think, most certainly, we ought not. But suppose we have the power, is there any Senator who believes we ought to exercise it? I trust not. Those who urge the reception of this petition, which is from the Society of Friends, have spoken most highly

of the petitioners and the class of citizens to which they belong. In all this I cheerfully concur. These particular persons are strangers to me. I doubt not the purity of their motives; the sect to which they belong is worthy of all the encomiums passed upon it. I respect and esteem them most highly, and do not feel that in my composition there is a particle of unkindness towards them; but I think they would have us do that which we have no power to do, and if we had the power, by exercising it, we should do infinite mischief. This these petitioners do not desire. They have discharged what they think is their duty by having their petitions presented; I only discharge mine, when I say, consistently with what I feel to be my duty, I cannot receive them.

But it is further insisted that the right of petition is a sacred one that belongs to the nature of free government, and existed before the formation of our constitution; and that instrument did not give the right to petition, but intended only to secure it. This is sound doctrine, and has my hearty assent. The people are sovereign; members are their agents or servants; they have a right to make known their grievances, real or imaginary. We can pass no law, we can make no rule, to abridge or destroy that right. But what do gentlemen mean when they speak of the right of petition? Do they mean that, when the petition is presented, we must receive it, and do that which is prayed for? No. Not one member contended for this; so far from it, they say that, if the language of the petitioner is disrespect ful to the body, or to any member of it, we may and ought to refuse to receive it.

How is this? I beg that we may reflect seriously upon this matter. We are about to establish a doctrine to which I can never yield my assent. Are we to be exalted above our employers? Is our dignity to be of higher consideration than the property and lives of those who send us here? If a petition contains matter charging disgraceful conduct on the Senate, or any of its members, we may not receive it; but if it contains matter which is to destroy the slave property in this District, and in eleven States of this Union, and also to endanger the lives and dwellings of every citizen within their limits, we are bound to receive it. This is the doctrine contained in the arguments. I deny that there is any such distinction to be found in a single feature of our political institutions. The truth is, we have the power in both instances to refuse to receive the petitions, but in exercising it, when we ourselves only are assailed, we ought always to act most liberally in receiving; but where the safety, the lives, and the property of our masters are concerned, we have no right to exercise the same liberality.

With great deference for the opinions of others, I think the force of their whole argument rests on a plain mistake. They argue as if we never became acquainted with the contents of a petition, or could consider and decide upon its merits, until after it is received. This is most clearly not correct. What we have been doing for the last few weeks is full proof of it. These petitions have been publicly read, their merits and tendency, and our powers to abolish slavery, have been long under discussion; has any man denied our right to do so? Not one; the only doubt suggested is, whether it was prudent to adopt this course.

By the twenty-fourth rule, when a petition is presented, the member must briefly state its contents, and what the petitioners wish should be done. He then asks that

the petition may be received, and specifies what he wishes to be done with it after it is received. If no member objects, for the purpose of saving time, it is received and disposed of without formally propounding the question of reception; but if any member objects, he may call for the reading, and then urge his reasons

[SENATE.

why it should not be received. This rule establishes no new doctrine; it is founded in good sense, is perfectly consistent with the right of petition, and is laid down as the correct practice by Mr. Jefferson in his Manual, at page 140. What is the right of the petitioner? It consists in his having free permission to make known to Congress what he esteems a grievance, and to ask them to provide a remedy. When his petition is presented, the duty of Congress commences. That consists in the members making themselves acquainted with the contents of the petition, and granting its prayer, if it be just and consistent with the public interest, or in refusing to receive the petition, or making some other disposition of it which, in their judgment, will more conduce to the good of the community. When we refuse to receive a petition we no more destroy or impair the right of petition than we do when we receive the petition and lay it upon the table, or reject the prayer of it, or refer it to a committee, who reports that it is unreasonable, and ought not to be granted. In each of these cases the complaint of the petitioner has been heard, considered, and decided on. In neither instance has he obtained a redress for what he supposed a grievance, but each leaves him equally at liberty to renew his petition at any subsequent period.

Four modes have been suggested by which to dispose of this and all others on the same subject.

The first we have been considering, and is to refuse to receive it.

The second is to receive them, lay them on the table, and there let them lie.

The third is to receive them, and then instantly reject the prayer of the petitioners.

The fourth is to receive them, refer them to a committee, and let that committee make a report upon them.

I prefer the first, because, when we refuse to receive the petitions, they are returned to those who sent them, and it will most strongly discountenance all hope that Congress ever can, or ever ought to, pass any law upon the subject to which they refer. In each of the other three, we retain the petitions, place them on our files, in the custody of our officer, and at any subsequent session they are here, and it will be competent for any member to move their reference to a committee; whereas, if returned to the petitioners, if they ever again make their appearance, it must be by their being resent and re-presented. I think that plan is the most advisable, and will be most likely to calm the disturbance in the slave States, which will most strongly manifest to all, in every quarter, that Congress will not interfere with slavery as it exists in the States and in this District.

If these petitions are received, I then think the disposition of them proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania the next best-that is, immediately to reject their prayer. This would be far preferable to laying them silently on the table, without expressing any opinion whatever.

There is another aspect in which this question may be viewed that has had great influence on my own mind. Congress sits here as the Legislature of the whole Union, and also as the only Legislature for the local concerns of the District of Columbia. These petitions do not ask us to make a general law, operating throughout the whole Union, but a law, the operations of which are to be spent entirely upon property within the ten miles square. Now, if we were in form, as well as in substance, a local Legislature when acting on this question, which gentlemen say is to affect slavery in the District, and nowhere else, would we be bound to receive these petitions? No more than we are bound to receive petitions from France or Germany. Would

ticularly to the honorable Senators upon this floor from the non-slaveholding States, and, through them, to the people themselves, if what I say here shall be deemed worthy to reach their ear, on this all-absorbing question; and I need not declare how much I crave their pardon and their favor for this direct appeal.

Upon the constitutional question involved in this subject, it is not my purpose particularly to dwell; but I may occasionally advert to it in my progress, since the views I entertain on that point have been so ably enforced and finely illustrated by others, as to render any thing more unnecessary and superfluous; besides, that part of the question does not, at this time, enter into my views; I mean to appeal to another powerful director in matters of this sort-the social tie, as cemented between us by mutual interests, sound common sense, and love of justice; and with this intent I will refer to the origin and character of the Government over this little District of Columbia, whose agency is invoked by the petitioners to establish a system that would, if adopted, inevitably spread disquiet and destruction in the proximate neighborhoods, and through them into the whole South.

It is a part of the history of this federal Government of ours, that is familiar to all who hear me, that the clause in the constitution which establishes the seat of the general Government in this District of Columbia, "ten miles square" was not contained in the original draught of that instrument, but was inserted afterwards upon the suggestion of the expediency of the matter, founded upon a fact which had taken place in Philadelphia towards the latter end of the revolutionary war, when the old Congress was insulted, and their deliberations threatened to be overawed, by a turbulent mob; and the police of Philadelphia, at that time, being either too weak or too timid to afford them the necessary protection, Congress found it necessary to remove to Trenton, in New Jersey, and afterwards to Annapolis, in Maryland, for security from disturbance. This goes to show that the exclusive object of extending this Government over the District of Columbia was for the single purpose of enabling Congress to protect its members from insult, and to guard their deliberations upon the national concerns from interruption and all overawing influence, and for no other purpose.

The site for this District was selected by the great founder of the republic, embracing a portion of country on either bank of the Potomac, within those por tions of the States of Virginia and Maryland that were then among the most slaveholding parts of those two slaveholding States, and which have since undergone no material change. The cession was made by those States, and agreed to by the persons holding the territory ceded, no doubt from motives of patriotism and pride, as well as from the hopes of various future advantages. Bringing with them their own laws as a part of the compact of cession, subject to such future changes as they might find useful for their local and other circumstances, and stipulating for the security of property, they looked to nothing else, they never had a thought of any thing else, than that all changes that might be made by Congress that would affect their domestic relations, their property, their habits, would alone proceed from their own suggestion, dictated by their own wants and their own judgment in relation to their own exclusive concerns; they never dreamed that they were to be subject to a legislation dictated by others, on whom the effect of that legislation was not to fall. Could it be presumed that the independent citizens of independent States would ever have consented to have exchanged a legislation over their personal rights and property, by representatives chosen by and responsible to themselves, for the exclusive legislation

[MARCH 3, 1836.

of a Congress, irresponsible to them, if subject to be directed by the petitions and wishes of others, who had neither a common residence nor a common interest with them? It could not have been expected. They never, never had an idea about external interference to introduce laws and systems to bind them and their property, foreign to their habits, conflicting with their established interests, and inconsistent with the happiness and comfort of which they felt themselves secure in the enjoy ment; nor did the probability of such a thing ever occur to others. Upon this plain view of the state of things, I turn to the intelligence of the North and of the West, and of the whole non-slaveholding country, and I put it to their generous social feeling, and I ask them, is it right, is it just, is it friendly in them, merely for the indulgence of a feeling upon the abstract question of slavery, to try to influence Congress, who have the exclusive legislation over this District, to force upon their fellow-citizens in this District a system of things uncongenial with their habits, inconsistent with their wishes and interests, and adverse to their views, which at the same time spreads alarm, excites dissatisfaction and hostile feeling, through all the neighboring and similarly situated States? When they see that the people of the District, whom they desire immediately to affect, are averse to it; and when they see hundreds of thousands of their intelligent fellow-citizens, who must be inevitably mediately affected by it, thrown into consternation and agitated to desperation at the very demonstration of their designs, what motive can they find in charity, in benevolence, or in any of all the Christian virtues, to justify a perseverance in a cause that is to be a hateful source of strife fed by blood? Let me entreat them to pause and to forbear. They have nothing to risk or to pledge on the result, whilst we risk every thing; they desire to gratify a sentiment, whilst we have all at risk that is dear to the heart of man-our country, our wives, our children, friends and home, and, what would be insupportable in the loss of these, our lives; weigh these stakes and risks in the balance, and then let their calmed Christian spirit speak. I cannot doubt their intelligence; I will not distrust their generous moral sentiment nor their pious benevolence.

Allow me to propound a case to their consideration, as we sometimes are enabled to bring things home to our understandings and our hearts more strongly by the illustration of a converse proposition.

Suppose the site for the District, in which the seat of Government was to have been placed, had been selected in Pennsylvania, or in some other neighboring nonslaveholding State, and, after Congress had been long established there, and the inhabitants of the District had become fixed in their habits, with every thing adjusted to their own taste and wishes, and to those of the prox imate and neighboring States, that the people of the South should have taken up the opinion that it would be much more agreeable to them, much more suitable to their habits and mode of life, if slavery could be introduced into that District; and that they were, in consequence of this sentiment, to send in petitions to Congress, year after year, from all quarters of the South, to establish slavery in that District; would the Senators and Representatives from the non-slaveholding States, or the people themselves in those States, give ear for a moment to such petitions? Certainly not. And why? Because their object would be to interfere with the established system of things already existing, with which those immediately to be affected, and those around them, were content, and which they preferred; and be cause it would produce a change that they deprecated, as unsuited to their views as it would be contrary to their wishes. Yet, this is but the converse of the state of things that the petitioners desire to bring about,