ed 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 inhabitants of that District against the right of the
American people to petition their own Congress, in relation to matters
of vital importance to the seat of their own Government! I take occasion
here to admit, that I have seen but references to this protest--not the
protest itself. I presume, that it is not dissimilar, in its spirit, to
the petition presented about the same time by Mr. Moore in the other
House of Congress--his speech on which, he complains was ungenerously
anticipated by yours on the petition presented by yourself. As the
petition presented by Mr. Moore is short, I will copy it, that I may say
to you with the more effect--how unfit is the spirit of a slaveholding
people, as illustrated in this petition, to be the spirit of the people
at the seat of a free Government!

[Footnote A: "It (slavery) is a sin and a curse both to the master and
the slave:"--_Henry Clay_.]

"_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

The petition of the undersigned, citizens of the District of Columbia
represents--That they have witnessed with deep regret the attempts which
are making _to disturb the integrity_ of the Union by a BAND OF
FANATICS, embracing men, women, and children, who cease not day and
night to crowd the tables of your halls with SEDITIOUS MEMORIALS--and
solicit your honorable bodies that you will, in your wisdom, henceforth
give neither support nor countenance to such UNHALLOWED ATTEMPTS, but
that you will, in the most emphatic manner, set the seal of your
disapprobation upon all such FOUL AND UNNATURAL EFFORTS, by refusing not
only to READ and REFER, but also to RECEIVE any papers which either
directly or indirectly, or by implication, aim at any interference with
the rights of your petitioners, or of those of any citizen of any of the
States or Territories of the United States, or of this District of which
we are inhabitants."

A Legislature should be imbued with a free, independent, fearless
spirit. But it cannot be, where discussion is overawed and interdicted,
or its boundaries at all contracted. Wherever slavery reigns, the
freedom of discussion is not tolerated: and whenever slavery exists,
there slavery reigns;--reigns too with that