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Show CllAP'fER X. SLAVERY IN TilE DISTRICT OF COLUMDIA. December 12, 1831. This being the first day of the session for presenting petitions, a great number were pre. sented. Among others, Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, (ex-President of the U nitcd States) presented fifteen petitions, all nnmeronsly subscribed, from sundry inhabitants of Pennsylvania, all of tho same purport, praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and moved that the first of them should be read, and it was read accordingly. Mr. A. then observed that it lutd doubtless been ro~ marked that these petitions came, not from ~1assuchu etts, a portion of whose people he had the honor to represent, but from the citizens of the SLate of Pcnm~ylvania. ITo had rcceivcu the petitions many months ago, with a request that they should be pr·csented; and, although the petitions were not of his immediate constituents, he had not deemed himself at liberty to decline presenting their petitions, the transmission of which to him manifested a confidence in him for which he was bound to be grateful. From a letter which bad accompanied these petitions, he inferred that they came from members of the Society of Friends, a bocly of men than whom there was no more respectable und worthy class of citizens; none who more strictly maclc their lives 11 commcntnry on thcit· professions; n body of men compri ing, in his firm opinion, as mu h of human virtue, as little of hnmnn infirmity, as any other cqnal number of men of any deno mi1tat.ion on the face of the globe. r:l'he petitions, Mr. A. continuecl, asked for two things: (308) SLAVERY IN TilE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 309 the first wn.s the abolition of slavery; the second, the aboli. tion of tho Hlave trade in the District of Columbia. Thoro wns a traffic of lavrs carrie<l on in the District, of which he did not know bnt that it might be a proper subject of legis~ btion by Cougrcss, n.ncl he therefore moved that the petition he hod the lt onor of pre, enti11g, shoul<l be referred to the commi ttee 011 tlte affairs of the Di:trict of Columbin,, who woulu dispose of them as they, upon examination of their purport., .'houlcl deem proper, and might report on the expediency of gran t ing so much of the prayer of t he petitioners as referred to the abolition of tho slave trade in the District. .A s to the oth r prayer of the petitioncrR, the abol ition by Congrc. s of slavery in the District of Columbia, it had occurred to him that the petitions might have been committc·cl to his charge under an expectation that it would receive his countenance an<l support. lie deemed H, therefore, hi~ duty to declare that i L would not. Whatever might be his opinion of lavery in the abstract, or of slavery in the Di!:!trict of Columbia, it was a subject which he hoped would not be di. cussed in the Ilousc; if it should be, he migltt perhaps assign the reasons why he could give it no countenance or support. .A.t present, he would only say to tho IIousc, nnd to the worthy citizens who had committed th eir petitions to his charge, that the most salutary medicines, unduly administered, became the most deadly of poisons. He concluded by moving to refer the petitions to the committee for the District of Columbia. December 1 n, 1831. Mr. Dodtlridrrc, from the committee for the District of Columbia, made the following report, which was read and concurred in by the liou e : 'l'he committee for the District of Columbia have, accord· inO' to order had under their consideration the memorials I of sundry citizens of the State of P ennsylvania, lo Lhcm re-ferred, praying tho passage of such law or laws by Congress, |
