esmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District,
has just been made by Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress
from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of
Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:

"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING
MAJORITY _think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade
between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried
out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the
territories, Florida among them. They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG
REASONS, _that the power of Congress extends to all of these
subjects_."

_Direct testimony_ to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District, has always till recently been _universally conceded_,
is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of
Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."

Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives,
on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the
Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that the
report conceded that Congress had a right to legislate upon the subject
in the District of Columbia, and said that SUCH A RIGHT HAD NEVER BEEN,
TILL RECENTLY, DENIED."

The American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, with a large
circulation and list of contributors in the slave states, holds the
following language in the September No. 1833, p. 55: "Under this
'exclusive jurisdiction,' granted by the constitution, Congress has
power to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia. It would hardly be necessary to state this as a distinct
prop