sustained by the unanimous voice of my own constituents; there were many among them, persons as respectable and as entitled to consideration as any others, who disapproved of the course I pursued on that occasion.

Attempts were made within the district I then represented to get up meetings of the people to instruct me to pursue a different course, or to multiply petitions of the same character. These efforts were continued during the whole of that long session of Congress; but, I am gratified to add, without any other result than that, from one single town of the district which I had the honor to represent, a solitary petition was forwarded before the close of the session, with a request that I would present it to the House. Sir, I did present it, and it was referred to the same committee on the District of Columbia, and I believe nothing more has been heard of it since. From the experience of this session, I was perfectly satisfied that the true and only method of keeping this subject out of discussion was, to take that course; to refer all petitions of this kind to the committee on the District of Columbia, or some other committee of the House, to receive their report, and to accept it unanimously. This does equal justice to all parties in the country; it avoids the discussion of this agitating question on the one hand, and on the other, it pays due respect to the right of the constituent to petition.

Two years afterwards, similar petitions were presented, and at that time an effort made, without success, to do that which has now been done successfully in one instance. An effort was made to lay these petitions on the table; the House did not accede to the proposition: they referred the petitions as they had been before referred, and with the same result. For, from the moment that these petitions are referred to the committee on the District of Columbia, they all go to the family vault" of all the Capulets," and you will never hear of them afterwards.

Extract from the speech of Hon. Silas Wright, of New York, in the Senate, Jan. 19, 1836, on the subject of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Wright said he was not to discuss the subject of slavery in the abstract. He knew it, and the people of the North, as a body, knew it only as it existed under the Constitution of the United States, and was sanctioned by it. They thought of it in that light, and in that light only, so far as its existence in these States is concerned, and so far as the quiet of the country and the preservation of the Union are involved in any agitation of the subject. In that sense, it was not a question for discussion in that body.

Neither was he to debate the question of slavery in the sovereign States of this Union. The sacred and invaluable compact which constitutes us one people, had not given to Congress the jurisdiction over that question. It was left solely and exclusively to those States, and, in his humble. judgment, it ought never to be debated here in any manner whatever.

Mr. W. said he would go farther, and say that he did not purpose to trouble the Senate with a discussion upon the propriety of any action on the part of Congress in reference to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or in regard to the constitutional power of Congress over that subject. He had listened with pleasure and profit to the able argument of the honorable senator from Virginia (Mr. Leigh), upon the powers of Congress, and had marked his concessions of power equal to that possessed by the legislatures of the respective States of Maryland and Virginia over the same subject within those States. He had not studied the question himself, because he was able to mark out his own course, with perfect satisfaction to his own mind, without examining either the constitutional powers of Congress, or the powers of those State legislatures. He was ready to declare his opinion to be, that Congress ought

not to act in this matter, but upon the impulse of the two States surrounding the District, and then in a manner precisely graduated by the action of those States upon the same subject. Had the Constitution, in terms, given to Congress all power in the matter, this would, with his present views and feelings, be his opinion of the expedient rule of action, and entertaining this opinion, an examination into the power to act had been unnecessary to determine his vote upon the prayer of these petitions. He was ready promptly to reject their prayer, and he deeply regretted that he was not permitted so to vote without debate.

Extract of a speech delivered in the United States Senate, by Mr. Buchanan, in 1835.

"The Constitution has, in the clearest terms, recognized the right of property in slaves. It prohibits any State into which a slave may have fled from passing any law to discharge him from slavery, and declares that he shall be delivered up by the authorities of such State to his master. Nay, more, it makes the existence of slavery the foundation of political powers, by giving to those States within which it exists representatives in Congress, not only in proportion to the whole number of free persons, but also in proportion to three-fifths of the number of slaves.

"Sir, this question of domestic slavery is a weak point in our institutions. Tariffs may be raised almost to prohibition, and then they may be reduced so as to yield no adequate protection to the manufacturer; our Union is sufficiently strong to endure the shock. Fierce political storms may arise; the moral elements of the country may be convulsed by the struggles of ambitious men for the highest honors of government. The sunshine does not more certainly succeed the storm than that all will again be peace. Touch this question of slavery seriously-let it once be made manifest to the people of the South that they cannot

live with us, except in a state of continual apprehension and alarm for their wives and their children, for all that is near and dear to them upon the earth, and the Union is from that moment dissolved. It does not then become a question of expediency, but of self-preservation. It is a question brought home to the fireside, to the domestic circle, of every white man in the Southern States."

OPINIONS OF MR. BENTON.

At the session of 1835, Mr. Buchanan presented to the Senate the memorial of the Society of Friends, adopted at their Caln quarterly meeting, requesting Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Benton rose to express his concurrence in the suggestion of the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Buchanan,] that the consideration of this subject be postponed until Monday. It had come up suddenly and unexpectedly today, and the postponement would give an opportunity for senators to reflect, and to confer together, and to conclude what was best to be done, where all were united in wishing the same end, namely, to allay, and not to produce excitement. He had risen for this purpose; but, being on his feet, he would say a few words on the general subject, which the presentation of these petitions had so suddenly and unexpectedly brought up.

With respect to the petitioners, and those with whom they acted, he had no doubt but that many of them were good people, aiming at benevolent objects, and endeavoring to ameliorate the condition of one part of the human race, without inflicting calamities on another part; but they were mistaken in their mode of proceeding; and so far from accomplishing any part of their object, the whole effect of their interposition was to aggravate the condition of those in whose behalf they were interfering.

But there was another part, and he meant to speak of the

abolitionists generally, as the body containing the part of which he spoke; there was another part whom he could not qualify as good people, seeking benevolent ends by mistaken means, but as incendiaries and agitators, with diabolical objects in view, to be accomplished by wicked and deplorable means. He did not go into the proofs now to establish the correctness of his opinion of this latter class, but he presumed it would be admitted that every attempt to work upon the passions of the slaves, and to excite them to murder their owners, was a wicked and diabolical attempt, and the work of a midnight incendiary. Pictures of slave degradation and misery, and of the white man's luxury and cruelty, were attempts of this kind; for they were appeals to the vengeance of slaves, and not to the intelligence or reason of those who legislated for them. He [Mr. B.] had had many pictures of this kind, as well as many diabolical publications, sent to him on this subject during the last summer; the whole of which he had cast into the fire, and should not have thought of referring to the circumstance at this time, as displaying the character of the incendiary part of the abolitionists, had he not, within these few days past, and while abolition petitions were pouring into the other end of the Capitol, received one of these pictures, the design of which could be nothing but mischief of the blackest dye. It was a print from an engraving, (and Mr. B. exhibited it, and handed it to senators near him,) representing a large and spreading tree of liberty, beneath whose ample shade a slave owner was at one time luxuriously reposing, with slaves fanning him: at another, carried forth in a palanquin, to view the half-naked laborers in the cotton field, whom drivers, with whips, were scourging to the task. The print was evidently from the abolition mint, and came to him by some other conveyance than that of the mail, for there was no post-mark of any kind to identify its origin, and to indicate its line of march. For what purpose could such a pic.