their lessons of
practical republicanism amidst the monuments and abominations of
slavery? Is it no objection to the District of Columbia, as the seat of
our Government, that slavery, which concerns the political and moral
interests of the nation, more than any other subject coming within the
range of legislation, is not allowed to be discussed there--either
within or without the Halls of Congress? It is one of the doctrines of
slavery, that slavery shall not be discussed. Some of its advocates are
frank enough to avow, as the reason for this prohibition, that slavery
cannot bear to be discussed. In your speech before the American
Colonization Society in 1835, to which I have referred, you distinctly
take the ground, that slavery is a subject not open to general
discussion. Very far am I from believing, that you would employ, or
intentionally countenance violence, to prevent such discussion.
Nevertheless, it is to this doctrine of non-discussion, which you and
others put forth, that the North is indebted for her pro-slavery mobs,
and the South for her pro-slavery Lynchings. The declarations of such
men as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, that slavery is a question not to
be discussed, are a license to mobs to burn up halls and break up
abolition meetings, and destroy abolition presses, and murder abolition
editors. Had such men held the opposite doctrine, and admitted, yea, and
insisted, as it was their duty to do, that every question in morals and
politics is a legitimate subject of free discussion--the District of
Columbia would be far less objectionable, as the seat of our Government.
In that case the lamented Dr. Crandall would not have been seized in the
city of Washington on the suspicion of being an abolitionist, and thrown
into prison, and subjected to distresses of mind and body, which
resulted in his premature death. Had there been no slavery in the
District, this outrage would not have been committed; and the murders,
chargeable on the bloodiest of all bloody institutions, would have been
one less than they now are. Talk of the slaveholding District of
Columbia being a suitable locality for the seat of our Government! Why,
Sir, a distinguished member of Congress was threatened there with an
indictment for the _crime_ of presenting, or rather of proposing to
present, a petition to the body with which he was connected! Indeed the
occasion of the speech, on which I am now commenting, was the _impudent_
protest of