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have been prepared to pursue the course he had indicated. But the question has now been forced upon us. No, (said Mr. B.,) it has not been forced upon me, because I am glad to have a suitable occasion of expressing my opinions upon the subject.

The memorial which I have in my possession is entitled to the utmost respect, from the character of the memorialists. As I entirely dissent from the opinion which they express, that we ought to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, I feel it to be due to them, to myself, and to the Senate, respectfully, but firmly, to state the reasons why I cannot advocate their views or acquiesce in their conclusions.

If any one principle of constitutional law can, at this day, be considered as settled, it is, that Congress have no right, no power, over the question of slavery within those States where it exists. The property of the master in his slave existed in full force before the federal constitution was adopted. It was a subject which then belonged, as it still belongs, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the several States. These States, by the adop tion of the constitution, never yielded to the general Government any right to interfere with the question. It remains where it was previous to the establishment of our confederacy.

The constitution has, in the clearest terms, recognised 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 power, 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.

An occasion very fortunately arose in the first Congress to settle this question for ever. The society for the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania brought it before that Congress by a memorial, which was presented on the 11th day of February, 1790. After the subject had been discussed for several days, and after solemn deliberation, the House of Representatives, in Committee of the Whole, on the 23d day of March, 1790, resolved "That Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, within any of the States; it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may require."

[JAN. 7, 1836.

is to produce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves, and to incite their wild passions to vengeance. All history, as well as the present condition of the slaves, proves that there can be no danger of the final result of a servile war. But, in the mean time, what dreadful scenes may be enacted, before such an insurrection, which would spare neither age nor sex, could be suppressed! What agony of mind must be suffered, especially by the gentler sex, in consequence of these publications! Many a mother clasps her infant to her bosom when she retires to rest, under dreadful apprehensions that she may be aroused from her slumbers by the savage yells of the slaves by whom she is surrounded. These are the works of the abolitionist. That their motives may be honest I do not doubt; but their zeal is without knowledge. The history of the human race presents numerous examples of ignorant enthusiasts, the purity of whose intentions cannot be doubted, who have spread devastation and bloodshed over the face of the earth.

These fanatics, instead of benefiting the slaves who are the objects of their regard, have inflicted serious injuries upon them. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. The masters, for the sake of their wives and children, for the sake of all that is near and dear to them on earth, must tighten the reins of authority over their slaves. They must thus counteract the efforts of the abolitionists. The slaves are denied many indulgences which their masters would otherwise cheerfully grant. They must be kept in such a state of bondage as effectually to prevent their rising. These are the injurious effects produced by the abolitionists upon the slave himself. Whilst, on the one hand, they render his condition miserable, by presenting to his mind vague notions of freedom never to be realized, on the other, they make it doubly miserable, by compelling the master to be severe, in order to prevent any attempts at insurrection. They thus render it impossible for the master to treat his slave according to the dictates of his heart and his feelings.

Besides, do not the abolitionists perceive that the spirit which is thus roused must protract to an indefinite period the emancipation of the slave? The necessary effect of their efforts is to render desperate those to whom the power of emancipation exclusively belongs. I believe most conscientiously, in whatever light this subject can be viewed, that the best interests of the slave require that the question should be left, where the constitution has left it, to the slaveholding States themselves, without foreign interference.

This being a true statement of the case, as applied to the States where slavery exists, what is now asked by these memorialists? That in this District of ten miles square--a District carved out of two slaveholding States, and surrounded by them on all sides--slavery shall be abolished. What would be the effects of granting their request? You would thus erect a citadel in the very heart of these States, upon a territory which they have ceded to you for a far different purpose, from which abolitionists and incendiaries could securely attack the peace and safety of their citizens. You establish a spot within the slaveholding States which would be a city of refuge for runaway slaves. You create by law a central

I have thought it would be proper to present this decision, which was made almost half a century ago, distinctly to the view of the American people. The language of the resolution is clear, precise, and definite. It leaves the question where the constitution left it, and where, so far as I am concerned, it ever shall remain. The constitution of the United States never would have been called into existence; instead of the innumerable blessings which have flowed from our happy Union, we should have had anarchy, jealousy, and civil war, among the sister republics of which our confederacy is composed, had not the free States abandoned all control over this question. For one, whatever may be my opinions upon the abstract question of slavery, (and I am free to confess they are those of the people of Pennsyl-point from which trains of gunpowder may be securely vania,) I shall never attempt to violate this fundamental compact. The Union will be dissolved, and incalculable evils will rise from its ashes, the moment any such attempt is seriously made by the free States in Congress. What, then, are the circumstances under which these memorials are now presented? A number of fanatics, led on by foreign incendiaries, have been scattering "arrows, firebrands, and death," throughout the Southern States. The natural tendency of their publications

laid, extending into the surrounding States, which may at any moment produce a fearful and destructive explosion. By passing such a law, you introduce the enemy into the very bosom of these two States, and afford him every opportunity to produce a servile insurrection. Is there any reasonable man who can for one moment suppose that Virginia and Maryland would have ceded the District of Columbia to the United States, if they had entertained the slightest idea that Congress would ever

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use it for any such purpose? They ceded it for your use, for your convenience, and not for their own destruction. When slavery ceases to exist under the laws of Virginia and Maryland, then, and not till then, ought it to be abolished in the District of Columbia.

Mr. B. said that, notwithstanding these were his opinions, he could not vote for the motion of the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] not to receive these memorials. He would not at present proceed to state his reasons, still hoping the Senate could yet agree upon some course which would prove satisfactory to all. With this view, he moved that the whole subject be postponed until Monday next.

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 to-day, 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, or mark of any kind, to identify its origin and to indicate its line of march. For what purpose could such a picture be intended, unless

ure.

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to inflame the passions of slaves? And why engrave it, except to multiply copies for extensive distribution? But it was not pictures alone that operated upon the passions of the slaves, but speeches, publications, petitions presented in Congress, and the whole machinery of abolition societies. None of these things went to the understandings of the slaves, but to their passions, all imperfectly understood, and inspiring vague hopes, and stimulating abortive and fatal insurrections. Societies, especially, were the foundation of the greatest mischiefs. Whatever might be their objects, the slaves never did, and never can, understand them but in one way: as allies organized for action, and ready to march to their aid on the first signal of insurrection! It was thus that the massacre of San Domingo was made. The society in Paris, Les Amis des Noirs, Friends of the Blacks, with its affiliated societies throughout France and in London, made that massacre. And who composed that society? In the beginning, it comprised the extremes of virtue and of vice; it contained the best and the basest of buman kind! Lafayette and the abbe Gregoire, those purest of philanthropists; and Marat and Anacharsis Chlootz, those imps of hell in human shape. In the end, for all such societies run the same career of degeneration, the good men, disgusted with their associates, retired from the scene, and the wicked ruled at pleasDeclamations against slavery, publications in gazettes, pictures, petitions to the constituent assembly, were the mode of proceeding; and the fish women of Paris-he said it with humiliation, because American females had signed the petitions now before us-the fish women of Paris, the very poissardes from the quays of the Seine, became the obstreperous champions of West India emancipation. The effect upon the French islands is known to the world; but what is not known to the world, or not sufficiently known to it, is that the same societies which wrapt in flames and drenched in blood the beautiful island, which was then a garden and now a wilderness, were the means of exciting an insurrection upon our own continent; in Louisiana, where a French slave population existed, and where the language of Les Amis des Noirs could be understood, and where their emissaries could glide. The knowledge of this event (Mr. B. said) ought to be better known, both to show the danger of these societies, however distant, and though oceans may roll between them and their victims, and the fate of the slaves who may be excited to insurrection by them on any part of the American continent. He would read the notice of the event from the work of Mr. Charles Gayarre, lately elected by his native State to a seat on this floor, and whose resignation of that honor he sincerely regretted, and particularly for the cause which occasioned it, and which abstracted talent from a station that it would have adorned. Mr. B. read from the work, "Essai Historique Sur la Louisiane." "The white population of Louisiana was not the only part of the population which was agitated by the French revolution. The blacks, encouraged without doubt by the success which their race had obtained in San Domingo, dreamed of liberty and sought to shake off the yoke. The insurrection was planned at Pointe Coupeé, which was then an isolated parish, and in which the number of slaves was considerable. The conspiracy took birth on the plantation of Mr. Julien Poydras, a rich planter, who was then travelling in the United States, and spread itself rapidly throughout the parish. The death of all the whites was resolved. Happily the conspirators could not agree upon the day for the massacre, and from this disagreement resulted a quarrel, which led to the discovery of the plot. The militia of the parish immediately took arms, and the Baron de Carondelet caused them to be supported by the troops of the line. It was resolved to arrest, and to

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Abolition of Slavery.

punish the principal conspirators. The slaves opposed it; but they were quickly dispersed, with the loss of twenty of their number killed on the spot. Fifty of the insurgents were condemned to death. Sixteen were executed in different parts of the parish; the rest were put on board a galley and hung at intervals, all along the river, as far as New Orleans, (a distance of one hundred and fifty miles.) The severity of the chastisement intimidated the blacks, and all returned to perfect order."

Resuming his remarks, Mr. B. said he had read this passage to show that our white population had a right to dread, nay, were bound to dread, the mischievous influence of these societies, even when an ocean intervened, and much more when they stood upon the same hemisphere, and within the bosom of the same country. He had also read it to show the miserable fate of their victims, and to warn all that were good and virtuous-all that were honest, but mistaken--in the three hundred and fifty affiliated societies, vaunted by the individuals who style themselves their executive committee, and who date, from the commercial emporium of this Union, their high manifesto against the President; to warn them at once to secede from associations which, whatever may be their designs, can have no other effect than to revive in the Southern States the tragedy, not of San Domingo, but of the parish of Pointe Coupeé.

Mr. B. went on to say that these societies had already perpetrated more mischief than the joint remainder of all their lives spent in prayers of contrition, and in works of retribution, could ever atone for. They had thrown the state of the emancipation question fifty years back. They had subjected every traveller, and every emigrant, from the non-slaveholding States, to be received with coldness, and viewed with suspicion and jealousy, in the slaveholding States. They had occasioned many slaves to lose their lives. They had caused the deportation of many ten thousands from the grain-growing to the planting States. They had caused the privileges of all slaves to be curtailed, and their bonds to be more tightly drawn. Nor was the mischief of their conduct confined to slaves; it reached the free colored people, and opened a sudden gulf of misery to that population. In all the slave States, this population has paid the forfeit of their intermediate position, and suffered proscription as the instruments, real or suspected, of the abolition societies. In all these States, their exodus had either been enforced or was impending. In Missouri there was a clause in the constitution which prohibited their emigration to the State; but that clause had remained a dead letter in the book until the agitation produced among the slaves by the distant rumbling of the abolition thunder, led to the knowledge in some instances, and to the belief in others, that these people were the antennæ of the abolitionists, and their medium for communicating with the slaves, and for exciting them to desertion first, and to insurrection eventually. Then ensued a painful scene. The people met, resolved, and prescribed thirty days for the exodus of the obnoxious caste. Under that decree a general emigration had to take place at the commencement of winter. Many worthy and industrious people had to quit their business and their homes, and to go forth under circumstances which rendered them objects of suspicion wherever they went, and sealed the door against the acquisition of new friends while depriving them of the protection of old ones. He (Mr. B.) had witnessed many instances of this kind, and had given certificates to several, to show that they were banished, not for their offences, but for their misfortunes; for the misfortune of being allied to the race which the abolition societies had made the object of their gratuitous philanthropy.

[JAN. 7, 1836.

non-slaveholding States, Mr. B. turned, with pride and exultation, to a different theme--the conduct of the great body of the people in all these States. Before he saw that conduct, and while the black question, like a portentous cloud was gathering and darkening on the Northeastern horizon, he trembled, not for the South, but for the Union. He feared that he saw the fatal work of dissolution about to begin, and the bonds of this glorious confederacy about to snap; but the conduct of the great body of the people in all the non-slaveholding States quickly dispelled that fear, and in its place planted deep the strongest assurance of the harmony and indivisibility of the Union which he had felt for many years. Their conduct was above all praise, above all thanks, above all gratitude. They had chased off the foreign emissaries, silenced the gabbling tongues of female dupes, and dispersed the assemblages, whether fanatical, visionary, or incendiary, of all that congregated to preach against evils which afflicted others, not them, and to propose remedies to aggravate the disease which they pretended to cure. They had acted with a noble spirit. They had exerted a vigor beyond all law. They had obeyed the enactments, not of the statute book, but of the heart; and while that spirit was in the heart, he cared nothing for laws written in a book. He would rely upon that spirit to complete the good work it has began; to dry up these societies; to separate the mistaken philanthropist from the reckless fanatic and the wicked incendiary, and put an end to publications and petitions which, whatever may be their design, can have no other effect than to impede the object which they invoke, and to aggravate the evil which they deplore.

Turning to the immediate question before the Senate, that of the rejection of the petitions, Mr. B. said his wish was to give that vote which would have the greatest effect in putting down these societies. He thought the vote to be given to be rather one of expediency than of constitutional obligation. The clause in the constitution so often quoted in favor of the right of petitioning for a redress of grievances would seem to him to apply rather to the grievances felt by ourselves than to those felt by others, and which others might think an advantage, what we thought a grievance. The petitioners from Ohio think it a grievance that the people of the District of Columbia should suffer the institution of slavery, and pray for the redress of that grievance; the people of the District think the institution an advantage, and want no redress; now, which has the right of petitioning? Looking to the past action of the Senate, Mr. B. saw that, about thirty years ago, a petition against slavery, and that in the States, was presented to this body by the society of Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that the same question upon its reception was made, and decided by yeas and nays, 19 to 9, in favor of receiving it. He read the names, to show that the Senators from the slave and non-slaveholding States voted some for and some against the reception, according to each one's opinion, and not according to the position or the character of the State from which he came. Mr. B. repeated that he thought this question to be one of expediency, and that it was expedient to give the vote which would go furthest towards quieting the public mind. The quieting the South depended upon quieting the North; for when the abolitionists were put down in the former place, the latter would be at ease. It seemed to him, then, that the gentlemen of the nonslaveholding States were the proper persons to speak first. They knew the temper of their own constituents best, and what might have a good or an ill effect upon them, either to increase the abolition fever, or to allay it. He knew that the feeling of the Senate was general; that

Having said thus much of the abolition societies in the all wished for the same end; and the gentlemen of the

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North as cordially as those of the South. He wished the subject to lie over till Monday, and then to hear the opinions of those gentlemen after they had had time to consider and to confer together.

Mr. TYLER rose and stated that he should have some

what preferred a different course. With the most pro found respect for the Senator from South Carolina, and his general course, still he did not think that his proposition on this subject was one which fully met the case. The right to receive or reject a petition is exercised on ordinary occasions, (said Mr. T.,) and the grounds on which motions of this kind are justified are numer ous. A mere motion to reject is not adapted to a case like this, and is not such as should come from Senators whose State has been so grossly and wantonly libelled. Would the rejection of these petitions be so satisfactory to the State which the honorable Senator represents, as some other course which may be pointed out? It may be inferred that they were rejected solely on account of the disrespectful character of the language employed. The motion is one which does not touch the question of the competency of Congress. I want to see something more emphatic, more pointed; a positive disclaimer, on the part of Congress, of all competence to act on the subject; and I think that, from the spirit which I see manifested around me, we may succeed in obtaining a positive and actual disclaimer. The Senator from Ohio has referred to the exclusive power of Congress over the District of Columbia. From this doctrine, which I now hear the Senator advocate, and for which I have never before heard him contend, I fear he will not be inclined to go the whole length of my proposition. The object of the Senator from South Carolina and mine are the same to put an end to the disquietude and insecurity which prevail in the South; and the only difference between us is as to the mode in which this can most effectually be done. What is the proposition which is made? Does it reach the subject? I think we ought to adopt a distinct and positive resolution, disclaiming any power in Congress to legislate on this subject. How is such a resolution to be obtained? In the usual manner in which resolutions are brought into this body. I would make no war with this petition, but would suffer it to go to the Committee for the District of Columbia, as others before it have gone. Not that, as chairman of that committee, I court the labor which it would impose; but because, from the construction of that committee, I believe a resolution would have been reported, declaring that the Senate had not the power to meddle with the subject. I believe the course we are taking is giving to these petitions too much consequence. Let them go to the lion's den, and there will be no footprints to show their return. The committee will meet them with a declaration that there is no power in Congress to do what the petitioners ask. I believe, also, that, with the exception of the Senator from Ohio, there would be no dissonance in the tone of the Senate on this subject. This, however, I only give as an opinion.

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commiseration of her sister States. All she asks of the North is, that her Senators will sustain the slaveholding States by adopting a resolution disclaiming any power in Congress to aid the views of wild and fanatic abolitionists, by interfering with the question of slavery. I feel that I am addressing men who are identified with our system of Government; and I frankly confess that I have no fear of this body. I verily believe that the Senate will be true to their oaths, and will be ready to defend every State of the Union If we shall find, notwithstanding, that I am mistaken in this belief, we can then stand on our rights. If I find any movement can be made, which may be satisfactory to the Southern States, and which will obtain the unanimous sanction of the North, I shall not be found to stand on any minor point which may create a division.

Mr. BROWN felt himself constrained, by a sense of duty to the State from which he came, deeply and vi tally interested as she was in every thing connected with the agitating question which had unexpectedly been brought into discussion that morning, to present, in a few words, his views as to the proper direction which should be given to that and all other petitions relating to slavery in the District of Columbia. He felt himself more especially called on to do so from the aspect which the question had assumed, in consequence of the motion of the gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] to refuse to receive the petition. He had believed from the first time he had reflected on this subject, and subsequent events had but strengthened that conviction, that the most proper disposition of all such petitions was to lay them on the table without printing. This course, while it indicated to the fanatics that Congress will yield no countenance to their designs, at the same time marks them with decided reprobation by a refusal to print. But, in his estimation, another rea son gave to the motion to lay them on the table a decided preference over any other proceedings by which they should be met. The peculiar merit of this motion, as applicable to this question, is, that it precludes all debate, and would thus prevent the agitation of a subject in Congress which all should deprecate as fraught with mischief to every portion of this happy and flourishing confederacy.

Mr. B. said that honorable gentlemen who advocated this motion had disclaimed all intention to produce agitation on this question. He did not pretend to question the sincerity of their declarations, and, while willing to do every justice to their motives, he must be allowed to say that no method could be devised better calculated, in his judgment, to produce such a result.

He (Mr. B.) most sincerely believed that the best interests of the Southern States would be most consulted by pursuing such a course here as would harmonize the feelings of every section, and avoid opening for discussion so dangerous and delicate a question. He believed all the Senators who were present a few days since, when a petition of similar character had been presented by an honorable Senator, had, by their votes to lay it on the table, sanctioned the course which he now suggested.

[Mr. CALHOUN, in explanation, said that himself and his colleague were absent from the Senate on the occasion alluded to.]

This is a question on which I cannot differ with the gentleman from South Carolina. I do not mean to rant about it here, nor to manifest any particular feelings, nor to ask the sympathies of Pennsylvania. The South is stronger than many believe her to be. It is true, no man's dwelling is safe from the midnight incendiary; but the incendiary is not to be found when the day breaks; Mr. B. resumed his remarks, and said that he had he finds his only safety in skulking into obscurity, or fly-made no reference to the votes of any particular meming to some distant spot. The efforts of these incendiaries have a tendency to the destruction of the whole of the black population. The incendiary walks abroad at night, and vanishes by day. Virginia fears no servile war; she fears only the midnight assassin. In the face of the broad day, her strength is sufficient to put down every thing like insurrection. She scorns to ask the

bers of that body, but what he had said was, that a similar petition had been laid on the table without objection from any one, and consequently by a unanimous vote of the Senators present. Here, then, was a most emphatic declaration, by gentlemen representing the Northern States as well as those from other parts of the Union, by this vote, that they will entertain no attempt at legis

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lation on the question of slavery in the District of Columbia. Why, then, asked Mr. B., should we now adopt a mode of proceeding calculated to disturb the harmonious action of the Senate, which had been produced by the former vote? Why (he would respectfully ask of honorable gentlemen who press the motion to refuse to receive the petition) and for what beneficial purpose do they press it? By persisting in such a course it would, beyond all doubt, open a wide range of discussion; it would not fail to call forth a great diversity of opinion in relation to the extent of the right to petition under the constitution. Nor would it be confined to that question alone, judging from an expression which had fallen from an honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. TYLER] in the course of this debate. That gentleman had declared his preference for a direct negative vote by the Senate, as to the constitutional power of Congress to emancipate slaves in the District of Columbia. He, for one, protested, politically speaking, against opening this Pandora's box in the halls of Congress. For all beneficial and practical purposes, an overwhelming majority of the members representing the Northern States were, with the South, in opposition to any interference with slavery in the District of Columbia. If there was half a dozen in both branches of Congress who did not stand in entire opposition to any interference with slavery, in this District or elsewhere, he had yet to learn it. Was it wise, was it prudent, was it manganimous, in gentlemen representing the Southern States, to urge this matter still further, and say to our Northern friends in Congress, "Gentlemen, we all agree in the general conclusion, that Congress should not interfere in this question, but we wish to know your reasons for arriving at this conclusion; we wish you to declare, by your votes, whether you arrive at this result because you think it unconstitutional or not?" Mr. B. said that he would yield to none in zeal in sustaining and supporting, to the extent of his ability, what he believed to be the true interest of the South; but he should take leave to say that, when the almost united will of both branches of Congress, for all practical purposes, was with us, against all interference on this subject, he should not hazard the peace and quiet of the country by going on a Quixotic expedition in pursuit of abstract constitutional questions. He would not quarrel with gentlemen so long as they continued in the determination not to interfere in this question, even if they did not come to that determination by precisely the same mode of reasoning with himself. Mr. B. said it appeared to him that the true course of those representing the South here was to occupy a defensive position, so long as others were disposed not to discuss it, and Congress refused to exert any legislative authority over the subject. When that attempt was made, if it ever should be, he should say the time for discussion had passed, and a period had arrived which called for other and more vigorous means of self-defence.

Another, and not the least weighty, reason had operated on his mind in bringing it to the conclusion that the motion to reject the petition was injudicious. If successful, nothing would perhaps be more agreeable to the fanatics (he thought they should be more properly called fiends in human shape, who would endeavor to lay waste the happiness and liberties of this country) than the intelligence that they had received this mark of notice, and to them, of consequence, from the Congress of the United States. Mr. B. said, in his judg ment, that man was but little skilled in the passions of the human breast, who did not know that there was no error, however great, nor any heresy, however abominable, either in religion or politics, which might not be aided by the cry of persecution, however unfounded it might be in fact. Fanaticism would scize on it, to

[JAN. 7, 1836.

enlist the sympathies of the weak and ignorant in their behalf. Wicked and fanatical inen had done this, in all ages, and he doubted not but the malignant spirits who had been laboring in this detestable vocation would cunningly seek to avail themselves of any means to further their diabolical designs. Another, and, with him, equally decisive reason against any course calculated to throw the subject open to discussion here, was the almost universal manifestation at the North, during the past summer and fall, of that fraternal and patriotic feeling towards the South, which he trusted would continue to exert its happy effect in preserving, unimpaired, the bonds of the union of these States. He rejoiced at this strong development of feeling, not only because it had contributed to repress the movements of dangerous enemies to the peace and happiness of our country in that quarter, but because it had dispelled the insidious misrepresentations in regard to the sentiments of the great body of the Northern people, which certain presses had, as he believed, both in the North and South, most industriously used, for the most sinister purposes. What were the facts, as to the public opinion of the North, on this subject? But a short time had passed by since most of the active leaders of this fanatical band were contemptible fugitives, in different parts of the North, where they had attempted to exhibit, from the insulted and generous indignation of a patriotic people, who wished to preserve the peace of the country and their obligations to us as members of the same confederacy. That an active and daring band of these incendiaries existed none could doubt, but that they formed a very small portion of the great mass of the Northern people, we not only had the assurances of public meetings, which had assembled almost throughout that quarter, attended by the most respectable and distinguished citizens, but we had here, but a short time since, the declarations of many of the Senators from the non-slaveholding States, that this class of individuals was but small, and that they were countenanced by no respectable portion of those States. He had been assured, since his arrival here, by gentlemen representing the Northern States, that an abolition discourse could not be delivered among those whom they represented, without endangering the safety of the person attempting it. In addition to this, he would say, that the action of the federal Government, through the Post Office Department, was protective of the rights of the South against incendiary publications. If Postmasters to the North and South did their duty, as sanctioned by the head of that Department, these enemies of our Government and of the human race were cut off from circulating, through that medium, their firebrands of mischief. Under these circumstances, was this a time for us to throw open the door to discussion on this subject, and thus assist in exacerbating feelings which had already been enough excited. He thought it only necessary to contrast the proceedings of the Senate on the petition to which he had before alluded, and which had been laid on the table by the unanimous vote of the Senators present, with the proceedings of to-day, to show the decided wisdom of taking the same course in relation to the present and all similar petitions. The petition which had been quietly inurned by the motion to lay on the table, had scarcely been thought of or heard of since, consigned as it had been to the insignificance and contempt of mortifying neglect and want of notice. What was the fact, in relation to the proposed mode of proceeding, as to the present petition? The Senate had already found itself engaged in a debate, which no one could foresee the direction of, thus producing agitation and dignifying with undeserved, and, no doubt, gratifying notoriety to the fanatics, a miserable effusion, which, but for this proceeding, would have fallen into obscurity

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