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Show 332 SLAV.illHY AGI'l'AT!ON. the issue, lost anything among their constituents for th devotion which they had shown to the Union* e I Prom Mr. Clay's great speech in the U. S. r11:1ry 'lth, 1830. I· IL is well known lo the Senal ," sai<l )1r. Clay, 11 I haL l have thought that the m o~t jndiciom.; eo urse wit11 at. l' t' ' UO I lOll petitions has not of late been punmed by Congress. 11 l have believed that it \YOtdd have been wi,·e t to have received aud referred them, without oppu. it ion, and to ltavc r ported ao·ain ·t their object in a culm and di:passionnto and argunl ' Illative appeal to the good cnse of the whuJo Ct) tllllltlllity. It has been supposed, however, by a mnjot'ity of Congrc · ·, that it was most expedient either not to receive the petitions at all, or, if formally received, not to net definitively upon them. ':rhcrc j ' 110 suustautial difference uet.wecu th ese oppo ·itc opinions, eincc both look to an absolute rejec tion of the prayers or the pet iti oncrs. But there is a great diifercnce iu the form of tn·occeding·. , 1 • ' <LIH I ~l.r .. President, some experience in the conduct of humuu all airs has taught me to believe tit at a ucglcct to 00, crve e~tal>li, hcd forms is often attended with more mi chicvo u~ co1n;equences than the infliction of a po ·itivc injury. \Vc all know tlw.t, even in private life, a violaLion of the exiatin. g usngcs. and c?re1.nonies of society cannot take place w1Lhout senous prc..'judice. I fear, sir, that the abolitionists h~vc acquir~d a co.nsidern.ble apparent force by blending With the ObJect wl11ch they have in view a collateral a11d 1otnlly different que tion arising out of an alleged violation of the right of petition. I know full we11, and take great ·x- This ro~olution afterward became notorious, from tho stigma c:~st upon 1t by tlHl abolitionists, as tho "Gag Rulo." lion. ?:wicl "\Vil~not, of Pennsylvania, among others, voted against lis repeat m tho Congross of '46- 7. H has si nce, howover, been rel)Caled. SLAVERY A01TA'I' fON. 333 pleasure in testifying, that nothing was remoter from tho illtention of the majority of the cnatc, from which I dif ferccl, thnn to violate t he right or peti t ion in nny case in which, according to itH jndgrncnt., that. right coulu be con sLitulionH-11y excre i ~e(l , or wh('rc the ohje ·t of the petition could bo safely or properly grn.nted. till, it mn t be owned thn.t the aholitionist::; have seized holcl or the fact of the treatment which their petitions have rrccived in Congress, and made injnrious impressions upon the minds of a large portion of the communi ty. rl'his, I think, might hn.vc been avoided by the course which I should have been glad to have seen pn rsncd. And I (lcsire now, ~1r. President, to advert to some of those topics which I think might have been usefully embodied in a report by a committee of tho Senate, n.nu which, I am persuaded, woul<l hn.vc checked the 1:r.ogrc s, if it had not altogether nrrestcd the efforts of nl>olttJon. J am sen· sible, sir, that this work wonl<l have b en nccomplishcd wiLh mnch greater ability, and with mnch happier cfl'ect, under the auspices of a committee, than it can be by me. 13ut, anxious as I always am to contribute whatever 1s 1n my power to the harmony, concord, atH1 happiness of this g: ~tt people, I feel myse1f irre:)i.-tibly impelled to do wh~tcver 1 m my powe1·, incompetent a.- J feel myself to be, to dtssnn.de t.he public from continuing to ugi Late a subject fraught w1th the most direful consequences. There are three classes of persons opposed, .or appa-rently opposed, to the con tin ned existence of slavery .in the United States. The fLrst arc those who, from scntunents of philanthropy ancl humanity, arc con. cicntionsly opposed to the existence of slavery, but who arc no lc.'s oppo ' d at the same tin1c to any <li sturlmncc of the p 'ace nnd trauquillity of the Union, or the infringement of th.c powers of the Stutes composing the confederncy. ln th1s class may l>c comprehended that pcuccfnl and exemplary society of |
