OCR Text |
Show 310 SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. as may be necessary for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade within the said District, and beg leave to report thereon, in part. Considering that the District of Columbia is composed of cessions of territory made to the United States by tho States of Virginia and Maryland, in both of which States slavery exists, and the territories of which surround the District, your committee arc of an opinion, that until the wisdom of State governments shall have devised some practicable means of eradicating or diminishing the evil of slavery, of which the memorialists complain, it would be unwise aud impolitic, if not unjust, to the adjoining States, for Congress to interfere in a subject of such delicacy and importance as is the relation between master and slave. If, under any circumstances, such an interference on the part of Congress would be justified, your committee are satisfied that the present is an inauspicious moment for its consideration. Impressed with these views, your committee offer for the consideration of the House the following [resolution : J Resolved, 'rhat the committee for the District of Columbia he discharged from the further consideration of so much of the prayer of the memorialists-citizens of the State of Pennsylvania n.sking the passage of such law or laws as may be necessary for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade within said District-as relates to the first of these objects, the abolition of slavery within said District. December 21, 1835, petitions for tho abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, being under discussion, Hon. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts,-rose and said he hoped the motion to reconsider this vote would not prevail; and he expressed this hope for the very reason which the gentleman ft·om Virginia [Mr. Patton], had assigned for voting in favor of the motion. It appears to me (said Mr. A)., that the only way of gettiug the question from the SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 311 view of the IIonse and of the nation, is to dispose of all petitions on the subject in the same way. '!"'his is not a new opinion ; I assumed this position in my very first act as a member of this IIousc, from tho very time when I first took my seat as a member of 22d Congress. A t that time fifteen petitions were transmitted to me, not from my own constituents, but from citizens of the 8ocioty of Friends in tho State of Pennsylvania, with a rcqncst that I should present them to the llousc. Sir, I did so in homage to the sacred right of petition-a rigllt which, in whatever manner it may bo treo.ted by other members of this IIouse, shall never be treated by me other than with respect. But, sir, not being in favor of the object of the petitions, I then gave notice to the House and to the country, that upon the supposition that these petitions had been transmitted to me unuer the expectation that I should present them, I felt it my duty to say I should not support them. And, sir, the reason which I gave at that time for declining to support them was precisely the same reason which the gentlcmo.n from Virginia now gives for reconsidering this motion-namely, to keep the discussion of the subject out of the House. I said, sir, that I believed this discussion would be altogether unprofitable to the llouse and to the country ; but, in deference to the sacred right of petition, I moved that these fifteen petitions, all of which were numerously signed, should be referred to the committee on the District of Columbia, at the head of which was, at that time, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, now, I regret to say-and the whole country has occasion to regret- no more. These petitions were thus referred, and after a short period of time, the chairman of the committee on the District of Columbia made a report to this House, which report was read, and unanimously accepted ; aud nothing more has been beard of these petitions from that day to this. In taking the course I then took, I was not |