H. OF R.] Right of Petition. [FEB. 11, 1837. abhorrence of the movements of modern abolitionists? A petition was there very recently presented to enlarge the political rights of free negroes; emanating, no doubt, from the same sources that are constantly agitating us was indignantly rejected by an almost unanimous vote of the popular branch of the New York Legislature. There was little or no sympathy for abolitionists there. New York is sound to the core upon this subject; and he had no fear that she would ever become otherwise. much here to try our patience, if not to abate our zeal in the good cause. We had heard entirely too much of blood and disunion; too much hurling of defiance, to afford us encouragement, to stimulate us to renewed vigor in the path of duty. Sir, there are many South-here; and eo instanti that it was presented, its prayer ern gentlemen who do not seem to appreciate our posi tion at the North. We now have, and always will have, fools and fanatics there, as well as elsewhere. We know we can keep them in subjection, if their arms are not nerved, and their ranks are not thickened, by the indiscretion of our Southern brethren. It is at the North where the battle against the abolitionists is to be fought. We will do the work for you, my friends from the South, nobly and gallantly; but, in the name of justice, cheer and encourage us with your kindness and friendship, instead of irritating us with menace, with denunciation, and ebullitions of defiance. Do not propose measures so harsh and unreasonable as to drive from us any of that great moral thinking mass of Northern population, that now sustains and encourages us in our efforts to put down the abolitionists. Think, gentlemen, before you speak; look before you leap. Recollect that the boldest measures are not always the wisest and most politic measures. Do not unconsciously play into the hands of Northern incendiaries, by asking us to vote for propositions which our constituents of the North may regard as violations of the constitution. Do not ask us to deny to freemen the right of petition, however deluded they may be. Be assured that you are not, by such a course, subserving the great interest you have so near at heart. It is calculated to increase our difficulties at home, and reinforce the enemy you wish to subdue. J conjure Southern gentlemen to think of, to appreciate, these considerations. They are dictated by a spirit of friendship, by a spirit of fidelity to the constitution. Think you not that harsh speeches and harsh measures operate against your cause? An honorable gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PINCKNEY,] in the ardor of debate, had resorted to a simile which, if true, might rather have been waived. He told us that he would as soon believe that a cow or a horse, a dog or a cat, had a right to petition, as that a negro slave had a right to petition this House. Speeches like these, and measures that are akin to them, furnish texts from which abolitionists will write and preach whole volumes. Let Southern gentlemen temper their valor with a little discretion, and, my word for it, all will yet be well. We of the North, the great mass of the North, will fulfil the compact to the letter and spirit. We recognised your property in slaves when we entered into solemn covenant and union with you. We solemnly agreed that slaves should form part of the basis of your representa. tion on this floor; and, until we become wretches, and wholly insensible to the obligations of covenant and duty, we will faithfully fulfil the compact. It was necessary that he should say a few words as to the right of slaves to petition. He was surprised that any intelligent gentleman had seriously contended for this right. It was wholly inconsistent with the idea of property in slaves, which all who understood the relation of master and slave must admit to exist. A slave is not a citizen in the eye of the constitution. His political existence is merged in that of his master. He cannot prosecute in your courts of justice; he cannot petition your legislative assemblies. Sir, I know enough of the sentiments of the State which I have the honor in part to represent to feel assured, that before slavery was abolished in New York, a proposition to present a petition from slaves to the New York Legislature would have been regarded as an insult. It would have awakened there as great a measure of indignation as has been here exhibited within the last five days. Sir, what has the Legislature of New York lately done to indicate its The An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. CUSHING] had favored us with a very eloquent and able speech, a few days ago; but the great defect of it was, that it did not meet the true question. Admit that the right of petition is pre-existent to and independent of the constitution, the question still recurs, whether it is not to freemen, and to freemen alone, that it attaches. The constitution secures to the people the right peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Had any one, before to-day, ever dreamed that the appellation of " the people" embraced slaves? Sir, I hesitate not to declare that, were I a Southern man, I would not submit to the doctrine that slaves have a right to petition, if Congress were ever mad enough to sanction it. Nay, I go further, and declare that, as a Northern man, I would not submit to it. I would not brook the degradation of listening to and entertaining that which it belongs to freemen alone to address to us. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. ADAMS] had fancied and stated some cases in which it might be expedient to entertain a petition from a slave. Sir, said Mr. V., I could have hoped that that gentleman was too sound a logician to suppose that extreme and far-fetched cases against a proposition prove its unsoundness. On the contrary, the maxim exceptio probat regulam was a sound maxim of law and philosophy. gentleman had supposed the case of a slave wandering or driven into a foreign country, and there cruelly op. pressed. He asks, would you not entertain a petition for his relief? Suppose, sir, you should here pass a broad and sweeping resolution, that petitions should not be received from slaves, and that any gentleman who should thereafter present such petition would be regard. ed as insulting the House. Suppose that, after this, a gentleman should rise in his place, and state that he had received a petition from an American slave in a foreign country, who was there most cruelly oppressed; that he had endeavored to find his master, but had not been able to find him; that he submitted it, most respectfully, to the House, to determine whether it would receive such petition, and the House were to determine, as matter of grace and favor, that the petition should be received: would this extreme case prove the unsoundness of the general proposition that slaves have constitutionally no right to petition? No, sir; it would not militate against the soundness of the general rule. even in such a case, the proper course would be for the slave to lay his case before our minister or consul abroad. Let the minister or consul communicate the facts to your Executive, and, if he regards it as a case requiring legis lative interposition, let him communicate it to Congress. I deny, therefore, that, even under such extreme cir cumstances, a slave would, as matter of strict right, have a right directly to petition Congress. And was it indeed so very strange that this right of petition was not a universal right? He appealed to his friends and colleagues from the North, whether there were not some persons in our section of the Union legally incapable of petition ing even your courts of justice. An infant, a person under twenty-one years of age, can there only petition a judicial tribunal by his guardian or next friend. Tell me not, then, that the right of petition to courts of jus tice or legislative bodies is a universal right; that it i But, not modified or limited by the laws and relations of society. He would not longer discuss this point. He had already dwelt too long upon it. To discuss it was paying too much respect to it. It was a point which he could have hoped would never have been mooted in an Amer. ican Congress. [H. OF R. that bis valuable and influential name had thus arrived here, and was perverted to most mischievous and incendiary purposes; and the gentleman very promptly returned him a letter, requesting him to withdraw his name, and informed him of the circumstances under which he had thoughtlessly put his signature to this petition. Before the abolition question had become one of fearful interest or notoriety, a mulatto man, a barber, who was accustomed every morning to shave the petitioner, one signed it hastily, and without the least reflection. Sir, said Mr. V., let me not be misunderstood. At the same time that I regret the indiscretions that flow from the deep feeling of the South upon this agitating subject, I feel every disposition to make very liberal allow-day presented to him in his shop this petition, and he ances for the feeling which there prevails, and which is the parent of these indiscretions to which I have advert. ed. Be assured, sir, that all that stanch and thinking portion of the North which is able to appreciate the ben efits and is disposed to fulfil the obligations that result from our glorious Union regard the sensitiveness of our Southern brethren as being by no means unnatural. A great portion of the South_imagines that a conspiracy is going on in the non-slaveholding States against their property; nay, more than this: that instruments are there being sharpened, to be put in the hand of the Southern slave, and to be raised against his master. That this apprehension was a deep if not a growing one he (Mr. V.) was fully aware. But was it not very probable that the natural fears of our Southern friends should a little magnify the dangers that actually existed? So far as his experience and observation extended, he felt justified in saying that the abolitionists had the faculty of making a great deal of noise, and creating the great. est sensation, with very little materials. When at home, he heard very little of them. Once in a while they would honor him with a paper, which served no other office but to light a candle or ignite a segar. A great proportion of the other petitioners signed it, no doubt, thoughtlessly as did this gentleman; and when presented here, the friends of the abolitionists claim, and gentlemen from the South seem too readily to fear, that petitions like these constitute something like evidence of public opinion at the North. He (Mr. V.) could have hoped that we had had too much experience upon this point, within the last four years, to confide too readily in the force of such evidence. We could not so soon have forgotten the flood of petitions, the countless names of petitioners, which were poured in upon us during the memorable panic session. From these documents it seemed that whole communities were unanimous in their anxiety for the restoration of the deposites to the Bank of the United States, and that not one tenth of the electors of this country would sustain the President in this great measure. The election, the true test of public opinion, came on, and where then were these armies of petitioners? Let the elections of 1834 answer. Why, then, sir, with all the lessons of experience before us, telling us how deceptive is that evidence of public opinion which is derived from petitions, should our friends from the South so readily take alarm from abolition petitions? We have had excitements at the North, arising from other causes, which swept like a tornado over our region; excitements that originated in the best and purest feelings of our nature, but which, unfortunately for the results which they at first promised, soon became intermingled with the political struggles of the day. He need hardly say that he alluded to the antimasonic excitement, which was a pure and hallowed indignation at a most barbarous outrage upon the person of an American citizen, and remained so until old political hacks, broken-down politicians, mounted the whirlwind which it raised, for the purpose of riding into those high places which they could never reach without some most unnatural and factitious aids. It had its day in the State where it originated, and was now on the wane. Though pure in its inception, the moment it was pervertted to political purposes, the people had sagacity enough to see the mischievous ends to which it was attempted to be prostituted, and firmness enough to resist, and successfully resist, its onward strides. Imposing as it once was, pure as it was in its origin, it could not secure, to those who mounted it as a hobby, political power in the State where it had its bir h. Sir, the fate of that excitement is to the friends of the Union, the friends of the South at the North, an ample guarantee that the abolition excitement can never be successfully perverted there to party purposes. It has not the alinient of principle and justice to sustain and feed it, which, before it was turned to political ends, the anti-masonic excitement could boast. It cannot, it will not, be a means of se curing political power, though demagogues and unprincipled men may endeavor to render it so. A great ma But as to any evidence of the fact which some Southern gentlemen were constantly putting to us, that the abolitionists were growing so rapidly and alarmingly in strength and consequence, he must confess that he (Mr. V.) had no personal knowledge of its actual existence. From what he knew of them, he would say that they seemed to be very well versed in the game of" brag," but when their actual hand came to be tested, it would turn out not to be by a tenth part so formidable as they pretended. Did the number of petitions and the number of petitioners whose names were paraded to us here form any just criterion by which to determine their strength? He was speaking in the hearing of men who were to familiar with the facility with which names were procured to petitions, to suppose that any formidable array of names to these petitions furnished any just cause of alarm. Sir, you can get thousands of signatures in every community to almost any petition, praying for the most preposterous objects in nature. One of the wisest and most accurate observers of men and things that this or any other country had ever produced once remarked that he had made it a point never to pay much attention or attach much importance to any paper or petition that had more than one name or signature to it; that there was no responsibility any where, when vast numbers thus united. Petitions formed the most fallacious evidence in the world of public opinion. If they were so in relation to ordinary matters, he had knowledge enough to feel authorized to say that they were emphatically so in relation to this subject. He had had abundant evidence of it since the abolitionists had com menced their mad and impracticable work. They had never done him the honor to intrust him (Mr. V.) with any of their petitions for presentation here. Perhaps they knew his sen-jority of the Northern people are a reading, a thinking, timents too well upon this question to intrust him with them. A petition from his district had, however, been presented by one of his colleagues, at the last session of Congress. He had had the curiosity to cast his eye over it, and found it headed by a most influential gentleman. Mr. V. immediately addressed him a note, informing him VOL. XIII.-109 and a reasoning people. They are devotedly attached to the Union, and will not contribute to any state of things that might possibly blot out a star or a stripe from the banner that floats over it. When mad or desperate men shall propose to turn the abolition excitement to party purposes, we know, sir, that with the people of the North discomfiture will be their doom. The weapons of truth, of argument, and of patriotism, are against them. We will then be, as we have hitherto been, faithful to our Southern brethren. We will tell our constituents of the obligations imposed upon them by the constitution. We will tell them that the freemen of the North and the freemen of the South fought shoulder to shoulder, in the great struggle of the Revolution, for the rich blessings we now enjoy; that when your independence was announced to the world, each State was sovereign and independent, and that the institution of domestic slavery then existed in most, if not in all, of the old thirteen States; that the warm climate of the Southern States disabled the white man from efficiently laboring there; and that this circumstance had contributed to render the slave property of the South a great and most vital interest; that common safety and common interest required a bond of union for States that had so freely poured out their blood and treasure for the rich inheritance we now enjoy; that our Southern friends would not enter into such bond of union with us without some stipulations or provisions, in the articles of union, by which their property in slaves, this great Southern interest, might be saved from losses and hazards, that might otherwise have resulted from the Union; that, for the great purposes of forming a more perfect Union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquillity, providing for the common defence, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity," the people of the United States did solemnly ordain and establish a constitution for the United States of America. That this sacred instrument expressly recognises this property in slaves, and establishes it as part of the basis of representation on this floor; that it prohibited Congress, prior to the year 1808, from passing any law to preclude the importation of slaves into the States, that it compels the peo ple of one State to deliver up to the owners fugitive slaves from another State. We will appeal to the duties and obligations that flow from this solemn compact, this sacred instrument, which has been the source of so much happiness and prosperity, and will boldly ask the people of the North, will you dishonor those fathers who, in ordaining the constitution, were actuated by the high and affectionate motive of 'securing the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity,' by violating one jot or tittle of the covenants into which they entered for such high and hallowed purposes?" S.r, we know what will be the response. They will greet us with their benedictions for our exertions here to save the constitution, and nobly say to us, "we will not dishonor our fathers by violating what they have so wisely and solemnly ordained; we will not, from a false and mistaken philanthropy, do or suffer to be done aught that may tend to tear and scatter into fragments our great and glorious Union.” And suppose, sir, that we should then be told that the abolitionists, in the petitions they address to Congress, do not propose to interfere with slavery in the States; that they only ask for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. We would still continue our expostulations, with a perfect confidence of triumph and success. We would tell our friends of the North, that when Virginia and Mary land ceded to the United States jurisdiction over this ten miles square, they were both, and now are, slaveholding States. We would ask them, had Virginia and Maryland imagined that the American Congress would have emancipated the slaves of this District, while slavery with them was a great and vital interest, think you that they would ever have ceded their jur sdiction over this territory, and thus make it the great armory where the weapons of incendiaries and ab [FEB. 11, 1837. olitionists would be collected, to be sent forth and scattered among their slaves? They would not, sir, hesitate to give the natural and the proper answer. We would then appeal to their sense of justice, and ask them whether, by abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, while all the circumjacent country, with which this District was once connected, is deeply interested in slave property, while Virginia and Maryland are both slaveholding States, we would not violate the spirit of the compact by which Maryland and Virginia ceded their jurisdiction over this District to the United States; whether, by abolishing slavery in this District, we would not commit a gross fraud, nay, perpetrate a shocking outrage, upon two of the old thirteen States that have such strong claims upon our justice and our affection; the one having given birth to Washington, the other having contributed her full quota of gallant actors upon almost every battle field of the Revolution. And to these questions, too, be assured, sir, we would receive, from a vast majority of the people of the North, the reply which good faith and a deep-rooted love for the Union would dictate. Mr. V. said that he had been very unexpectedly drawn into this debate. He had had no intention to speak, till he had heard the remarks of the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PICKENS.] He could not reconcile it with his sense of duty, as a Northern man, to sit still, after the speech which that honorable gentleman had delivered. He had said that he had heard too many threats of blood and disunion since he had had the honor of a seat here. Had we been told by a gentleman from the South that the Potomac would soon be the dividing line, and that its waters would be crimsoned with blood? These threats had ceased to frighten any body. When he (Mr. V.) had first entered this House, he always felt a holy horror when gentlemen presented to us the dreadful alternative of disunion! But, sir, it had no power longer to shake his nerves. He had become used to it; for it had become quite an old story. Threats of disunion had become as familiar here as household words. Gentlemen almost daily talked about setting up for themselves, as flippantly as maids do talk of puppy dogs," and no one was longer disturbed by it. He would not longer permit himself to be troubled with the apprehension of even the possibility of disunior. The North, though it had a few weak and deluded men, and officious women, would sacredly regard and faithfully fulfil all the obligations that resulted from the "Union." There was patriotism enough at the North, and patriotism and discretion enough at the South, to save this glorious fabric of our Union. Delusion and fanaticism would have only a brief and harmless career. 66 Mr. THOMPSON, of South Carolina, accepted the modified amendment of Mr. TAYLOR, as a modification of the original resolution. Mr. CAVE JOHNSON demanded the previous question; which was seconded; and the main question, being on the adoption of the resolutions, was ordered without a count. Mr. VANDERPOEL asked for the yeas and nays on the main question; which were ordered. A division of the question having been ordered, the first resolution, as modified, was then taken up, as follows: "An inquiry having been made, by an honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, whether a paper, which he held in his hand, purporting to be a petition from certain slaves, and declaring themselves slaves, came within the order of the House of the 18th of January, and the said paper not having been received by the Speaker, he stated that, in a case so extraordinary and novel, he would take the advice and counsel of the llouse: "Resolved, That this House cannot receive the said pe. tition without disregarding its own dignity, the rights of a large class of citizens of the South and West, and the constitution of the United States." The question being taken thereon, it was adopted, by a vote of yeas 160, nays 35, as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Alford, Chilton Allan, Anthony, Ash, Ashley, Bean, Bell, Black, Bockee, Boon, Bouldin, Bovee, Boyd, Bunch, Bynum, John Calhoon, Cambreleng, Campbell, Carter, Casey, John Chambers, Chaney, Chapman, Chapin, N. H. Claiborne, John F. H. Claiborne, Cleveland, Coles, Connor, Corwin, Craig, Cramer, Crary, Cushman, Dawson, Deberry, Dromgoole, Dunlap, Elmore, Fairfield, Farlin, Fowler, French, Fry, Galbraith, James Garland, Rice Garland, Gholson, Gillet, Glascock, Graham, Grantland, Graves, Haley, J. Hall, Hamer, Hannegan, Hardin, Harlan, Harper, Albert G. Harrison, Hawkins, Haynes, Holsey, Holt, Hopkins, Howard, Howell, Hubley, Hunt, Huntington, Huntsman, Ingersoll, Ingham, Jarvis, Jenifer, Joseph Johnson, R. M. Johnson, Cave Jolinson, Henry Johnson, John W. Jones, Kennon, Kilgore, Klingensmith, Lane, Lansing, Laporte, Lawler, Lay, Gideon Lee, Joshua Lee, Thomas Lee, Luke Lea, Leonard, Lewis, Logan, Loyall, Lucas, Lyon, Abijah Mann, Job Mann, Martin, William Mason, Moses Mason, Samson Mason, Maury, McComas, McKay, McKeon, Mc Lene, Mercer, Miller, Montgomery, Moore, Morgan, Muhlenberg, Owens, Page, Parks, Patterson, Patton, Franklin Pierce, James A. Pearce, Pearson, Peyton, Phelps, Pinckney, Rencher, John Reynolds, Jos. Reynolds, Richardson, Robertson, Rogers, Schenck, Seymour, Augustine H. Shepperd, Shields, Shinn, Sickles, Standefer, Sutherland, Taliaferro, Taylor, Thomas, John Thomson, Waddy Thompson, Turrill, Underwood, Vanderpoel, Wagener, Ward, Webster, Weeks, White, Thomas T. Whittlesey, Lewis Williams, Sherrod Williams, Wise, Yell, Young-160. NAYS-Messrs. Adams, Heman Allen, Beaumont, Bond, Borden, William B. Calhoun, Carr, George Chambers, Childs, Clark, Crane, Cushing, Darlington, Denny, Ev. ans, Samuel S. Harrison, Hazeltine, Henderson, Herod, William Jackson, Janes, Lincoln, Love, McKennan, Morris, Parker, Dutee J. Pearce, Phillips, Potts, Russell, Slade, Sloane, Spangler, Sprague, Elisha WhittleBey-35. The second resolution was then taken up, as follows: Resolved, That slaves do not possess the right of petition secured to the people of the United States by the constitution." Mr. HALEY moved to lay it on the table. Lost, with cut a division. The question was then taken on the adoption of the resolution, and decided as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Alford, Chilton Allan, Ash, Ashley, Bean, Bell, Black, Bockee, Bond, Boon, Bouldin, Bovee, Boyd, Bunch, Burns, Bynum, J. Calhoon, Cambreleng, Campbell, Carr, Carter, Casey, G. Chambers, J. Chambers, Chaney, Chapman, Chapin, Childs, N. H. Claiborne, J. F. H. Claiborne, Cleveland, Coles, Connor, Corwin, Craig, Cramer, Crary, Cushing, Cushman, Dawson, Deberry, Doubleday, Dromgoole, Dunlap, Elmore, Fairfield, Farlin, Fowler, French, Fry, Galbraith, J. Garland, R. Garland, Gholson, Gillet, Glascock, Grabam, Grantland, Graves, J. Hall, Hamer, Hannegan, Hardin, Harlan, Harper, A. G. Harrison, Haw. kins, Haynes, Herod, Holsey, Holt, Hopkins, Howard, Howell, Hubley, Huntington, Huntsman, Jarvis, Jenifer, J. Johnson, R. M. Johnson, C. Johnson, H. Johnson, J. W. Jones, Kennon, Kilgore, Klingensmith, Lane, Lansing, Lawler, Lay, G. Lee, J. Lee, T. Lee, L. Lea, Lewis, Lincoln, Logan, Loyall, Lucas, Lyon, A. Mann, J. Mann, Martin, W. Mason, M. Mason, S. Mason, Maury, (H. of R. McComas, McKay, McKeon, McLene, Mercer, Miller, Montgomery, Moore, Morgan, Muhlenberg, Owens, Page, Parks, Patterson, Patton, F. Pierce, James A. Pearce, Pearson, Pettigrew, Peyton, Phelps, Pinckney, Rencher, Joseph Reynolds, Richardson, Robertson, Rogers, Schenck, William B. Shepard, A. H. Shepperd, Shields, Shinn, Sickles, Spangler, Standefer, Taliaferro, Taylor, Thomas, J. Thomson, W. Thompson, Turrill, Underwood, Vanderpoel, Wagener, Ward, Webster, Weeks, White, E. Whittlesey, T. T. Whittlesey, L. Williams, S. Williams, Yell, Young-162. NAYS-Messrs. Adams, Heman Allen, Beaumont, Borden, Darlington, Denny, Haley, Hazeltine, Ingersoll, W. Jackson, Janes, Love, Parker, Phillips, Potts, Russell, Slade, Sloane-18. * So the second resolution was adopted. [When the name of Mr. WISE was called, that gentleman rose in his place and declined to vote, for the reason that he held that Congress had no power to interfere, in any way, with the subject of slavery.] *To the Editors of the National Intelligencer: GENTLEMEN: Having failed in numerous and pressing efforts (finally terminated by the previous question) to obtain the floor in the House of Representatives, on Saturday last, for the purpose of giving reasons for my neg ative votes on the two resolutions relative to the right of slaves to petition Congress, I feel impelled, by considerations peculiar to this case, and by the relation in which I stand to the question of slavery, to ask the privilege of briefly presenting to the public, through your paper, the substance of what I intended to say on that occasion. The first resolution, after reciting that Mr. ADAMS had inquired of the Speaker whether it would be in order to present a petition purporting to be from slaves, declares "That this House cannot receive the said petition without disregarding its own dignity, the rights of a large class of citizens of the South and West, and the constitution of the United States." The resolution contains three propositions: 1. That, in receiving the petition, the House would disregard its own dignity; 2. That it would disregard the rights of a large class of citizens at the South and West; and 3. That it would disregard the constitution of the United States. These several propositions, let it be observed, have respect to a petition the purport of whose prayer is not stated, the preamble to the resolution containing not the slightest allusion to it whatever. In affirming the propositions, therefore, no reference was had to the question, whether the prayer of the petition was respectful or insulting, lawful or unlawful, proper or improper. The simple, naked fact, that it was signed by slaves, formed the foundation, and the only foundation, for the propositions contained in the resolution. No matter if it were signed by slaves residing within the District over which Congress have exclusive jurisdiction, and whose legislation necessarily acts directly upon their rights; and no matter if it prayed even for protection from the exercise of the most excessive cruelty, for liberation from confinement by slave-dealers in the dungeons of the public prisons in this District, or for rescue from threatened transportation to, and sale in, a foreign country. No matter if it were for any or for all of these objects; to receive it, the resolution affirms, would be disregarding the dignity of the House, the rights of a large class of citizens, and the constitution of the United States. Now, how would the dignity of the House be compromitted by receiving a prayer for mercy, and, I may add, for justice, as in the cases I have supposed, from a [FEB. 11, 1837. and the warrant of the Speaker, had arrested Reuben M. Whitney, who was then in custody, and waiting the order of the House. ing a party with the other slave States to the constitu tion, which recognises the existence of slavery, and makes it the basis of representation, it cannot rightfully do any thing which shall tend to the abolition of slavery in the other States, and thereby deprive them of their slave representation in the Congress of the United States. This may now seem a very strained construction; but passion and interest have pushed sensible men to stran. ger absurdities than this. The second resolution to which I have referred declares "That slaves do not possess the right of petition secured to the people of the United States by the constitution." And how, in the next place, does the mere fact that a petition is from slaves render its reception a disregard of the rights of a large class of citizens at the South and West, and of the constitution of the United States? If the citizens of the South and West have, under the con- What does this resolution mean? Does it mean mere. stitution, rights in regard to their slaves, does it follow that ly that the guaranty of the right of petition to "the peo they are without limit? and that beyond that limit, what-ple," in the constitution, does not extend to slaves? For ever it may be, other rights may not exist? If the slave has no right to liberty, (I speak of a conventional right,) has he none to supplicate that precious boon at the hands of any power which may rightfully grant it? And has he no right to life? none to exemption from exces. sive cruelty? and none to implore protection to the one and security to the other? Is there no power on earth to which he may look for help in these extremities? To "disregard," in any sense applicable to this subject, the rights of the South and West, is to invade those rights; and can we invade them in the legitimate exercise of powers granted in the constitution? That constitution invests Congress with the power of exclu sive legislation over this District. Does not that power necessarily involve the right and the duty of hearing petitions from the governed, and from all the governed? Would it not be a very strange kind of Government which could not, or would not, hear such petitions? the sake of the argument, let it be admitted that it does not-that the assumption is correct (which has been made in the debate, but which I do not admit) that "the people," whose right of petition the constitution declares shall not be abridged, means merely "We the people" who formed the constitution, and not slaves. How does this admission affect the question? The existence of the right of petition, as has been often said in the debate, does not depend upon the guaranty of the constitution. It is a right which is before and above all constitutional guaranties. It has its foundation in the dependencies inseparable from the social state. If the constitution does not expressly guaranty it to slaves, neither, let it be remembered, does it take it from them. And shall I attempt, by my vote, to do what the framers of the constitution did not think proper to do, in the formation of that instrument? If it was intended by the resolution to assert merely If the bearing of petitions from the governed in the that slaves have not the benefit of the constitutional Territories of the United States consequentially affects guaranty of the right of petition, why was not the decthe interests of the South and West, is it a consequence laration made in language intelligible and unambiguous? of which the South and West have a right to complain? Such language was avoided. The right of petition, and They were parties to the constitution which created the not the constitutional guaranty stands forward as the exclusive Government, and they must abide its conse- prominent subject of the resolution. The right is one quences. Suppose the inhabitants of this District should thing-its guaranty another. The right is incident to continue to press Congress, as more than eleven hun- all Governments, instantly attaching to the relation of dred of them did in 1828, to abolish slavery and the governor and governed, the moment that relation comes slave trade within its limits; and should, as in that peti- to exist. But may, or it may not, be guarantied. If tion, denounce, in severe and almost unmeasured terms, it is, that guaranty is a mere supervening incident to the the enormities of both; would this be an invasion of the right. And it is in this light that I regard the allusion rights of the South and West, and a disregard of the to it in the resolution. The denial, by that resolution, constitution? Did Congress evince such disregard in of the right of petition, is not essentially affected by adreceiving that petition, and ordering it to be printed? ding that the right is one which has been secured to the And what is the difference in principle, so far as con- people of the United States by the constitution. It is, cerns this argument, between that case and the present? after all, the right of petition, in its great, original, esEleven hundred free white citizens of this District be-sential qualities and incidents, which is really denied. sought Congress to abolish slavery and the slave trade within its limits, and pressed it by abolition arguments. Did not this tend, according to the argument of the opponents of the right of slave petition, to create uneasiness among the slaves in the South and West, and thus affect the rights of a large class of citizens" in those sections of the country? There is great looseness in the reasoning which infers violations of the constitution from possible and remote consequences of a particular course of legislation. Admit the soundness of the reasoning in this case, and shut the doors of Congress upon petitions from the bond and the free of this District, touching the subject of slavery, merely because of their remote tendency to the abolition of slavery in the States, (for that is the argument,) and what shall we have next? Why, the doctrine that no State can abolish slavery within its limits, because, be Stripped of its non-committal disguise, then, the reso lution stands out neither more nor less than a broad denial of all right in slaves to petition. I will give no vote which can be even tortured into such a denial. Having said thus much, I owe it to myself to add tha', whatever may be the right of the slave to petition, I am clear that no countenance should be given to any attempts to exercise it. Such attempts can do the slave no good. From the nature of the case, his deliverance must arise from some other quarter. In the whole history of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery by Great Britain, I am not aware that the right of slaves to petition has ever been claimed or brought in question. And, if all the slaves in the land could be made to hear me, I would say to them, "entertain not, for one moment, the thought of petitioning the Government for liberty, much less of making any effort to obtain it by |