aming-houses, tippling-houses, and other places calculated to promote
and encourage vice--should a representative in Congress be instructed
by his constituents to use his influence, and vote against such
establishments, and the people of the District should instruct him to
vote for them, which should he obey? To state the question is to
answer it; otherwise the boasted right of instruction by the
constituent body is "mere sound," signifying nothing. Sir, the
inhabitants of this district are subject to state legislation and
state policy; they cannot complain of this, for their condition is
voluntary; and as this city is the focus of power, of influence, and
considered also as that of fashion, if not of folly, and as the
streams which flow from here irradiate the whole country, it is right,
it is proper, that it should be subject to state policy and state
power, and not used as a leaven to ferment and corrupt the whole body
politic.

The honorable Senator has said the petition, though from a city, is
the fair expression of the opinion of the District. As such I treated
it, am willing to acknowledge the respectability of the petitioners
and their rights, and I claim for the people of my own state equal
respectability and equal rights that the people of the District are
entitled to: any peculiar rights and advantages I cannot admit.

I agree with the Senator, that the proceedings on abolition petitions,
heretofore, have not been the most wise and prudent course. They ought
to have been referred and acted on. Such was my object, a day or two
since, when I laid on your table a resolution to refer them to a
committee for inquiry. You did not suffer it, sir, to be printed. The
country and posterity will judge between the people whom I represent
and those who caused to be printed the petition from the city. It
cannot be possible that justice can have been done in both cases. The
exclusive legislation of Congress over the District is as much the act
of the constituent body, as the general legislation of Congress over
the States, and to the operation of this act have the people within
the District submitted themselves. I cannot, however, join the Senator
that the majority, in refusing to receive and refer petitions, did not
intend to destroy or impair the right in this particular. They
certainly have done so.

The Senator admits the abolitionists are now formidable; that
something must be done to produce harmony. Yes, sir, do j