FEB. 23, 1836.]

He thought there was no more appropriate time than the present to decide this question. It was due to the importance of the subject that it should be met and decided promptly-it was due to the country that it should know what disposition Congress intended to make of this question.

Mr. MILLER said that, having failed in accomplishing his object in submitting his motion to postpone, he acquiesced in the motion of the gentleman from New York to reconsider, and was in favor of disposing of the question of order at this time.

Mr. WISE rose to make a prediction. When the gentleman from New York made the motion to reconsider, Mr. W. well knew that his appeal would be answered, and he expected that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. MILLER] would fully concur with the gentleman from New York. He begged the House to look at the fact that, when an appeal came from the South on the subject of slavery, it was unheeded, it was unsuccessful. Let it come from the gentleman from New York, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania would be found fully to concur with him.

Mr. BROWN rose to say that, so far as the remark of the honorable gentleman from Virginia [Mr. WISE] had any application, it could not embrace him. He had resisted the motion to postpone, because he wished the question of order settled now. It must be settled soon; for it was impossible the House should remain in its present state any length of time. Why not settle it now as well as next week, or any other time. He saw nothing to be obtained by procrastination. He came from a district which had not troubled the House upon the angry and engrossing question of slavery; and in sitting in silence in his seat for more than two months while the discussions were going on, in avoiding all agitations within these walls, as far as his influence could go, he believed he obeyed their wishes. The last thing he desired to do here was to debate the subject of the abolition of slavery in this District. In maintaining the most studied silence, he believed he obeyed the will of his constituents, as well as the dictates of his own judgment.

When the honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. PINCKNEY] submitted his resolutions, he voted for them, in the hope that all future petitions, praying for the abolition of slavery, would go to the select committee of which that honorable gentleman was chairman; and that the business of the House would be permitted to proceed in the usual manner. In what situation did the House find itself now? It was manifest that petitions could not be presented, so long as the question of order remained undetermined, and the right of petition, for the time being, was substantially denied. It was for these reasons he had voted against the motion to postpone; and it was for these reasons he should now vote for the motion of his honorable colleague [Mr. MANN] to reconsider the motion to postpone, with a view to reach the question of order.

Mr. PINCKNEY moved to lay the motion to reconsider on the table; which was negatived: Ayes 85, noes pot counted.

Mr. LAWLER asked for the yeas and nays on the motion to reconsider; which were not ordered. The motion to reconsider was then agreed to: Ayes 101, noes not counted.

Mr. MILLER withdrew the motion to postpone. The question then recurred on the question of order, which was as follows: On Monday of last week, a petition for the abolition of slavery within the District of Columbia was presented by Mr. BRIGGS, of Massachu

setts.

Mr. WISE raised the question of its reception. The CHAIR entertained that motion, and Mr. VINTON took an appeal from the decision of the Chair, on the VOL. XII.-164.

[H. of R.

ground that, by the adoption of the resolution of Mr. PINCKNEY, to refer all petitions heretofore offered, and which should thereafter be presented, on that subject, to a select committee, it was not in order to entertain the question of reception.

Mr. SHIELDS asked for the yeas and nays; which were ordered.

The point of order was discussed at length; and the decision of the Chair was sustained by Messrs. LAWLER, CUSHING, WISE, and GARLAND of Virginia, and opposed by Messrs. BEARDSLEY and GRENNELL.

Mr. VANDERPOEL said that his mind had not at first been altogether free from doubt or difficulty on this question, but his reflections had brought him to the conclusion that the Speaker was wrong, and he would now briefly submit the reasons that had brought him to such result.

On the 8th of February last, an honorable gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PINCKNEY,] for the very desirable and laudable purpose of establishing some mode by which these agitating abolition petitions could be disposed of, without a most useless, nay, a most exciting and mischievous debate, introduced a series of resolutions, which, after some debate, were adopted by a most overwhelming majority of this House; the first of which is the only one which is material to the consideration of the question now under discussion, and is in the words following:

"Resolved, That all the memorials which have been offered, or may hereafter be presented, to this House, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; and also the resolutions offered by an honorable member from Maine, [Mr. JARVÍs,] with the amendment thereto proposed by an honorable member from Virginia, [Mr. WISE,] together with every other paper or proposition that may be submitted in relation to this subject, be referred to a select committee, with instructions to report adversely to the prayer of the petitioners, and according to certain requisitions contained in the resolutions."

Subsequently to the adoption of these resolutions, an honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BRIGGS] presented a petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The question which had so often been agitated was again made by an honorable gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. WISE,] whether this petition should be received, and was about to be discussed at length; when it was urged by an honorable gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. VINTON,] that the question of reception could not now be contested or debated, because the House, by the adoption of the resolutions of the gentleman from South Carolina, had established a general uniform rule as to the manner in which these petitions should be disposed of. The Speaker decided that the question of reception was still open to objection and debate; and from that decision an appeal has been taken, which is now the subject under consideration.

Mr. V. said that, in order to determine the import, scope, and effect, of the resolutions introduced by the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, it was pertinent to inquire what object, what purpose, induced the presentation of those resolutions, and what circumstances attended their introduction into and passage through this House? It was well to inquire what was the old rule, what was the mischief; and then we could determine what sort of remedy was intended to be provided. Need he ask any gentleman what was the avowed object of the honorable mover of the resolutions, in bringing them to our consideration? It was, as all would readily answer, to avoid those interminable, unprofitable, and most incendiary" debates which had previously attended the introduction of every one of these petitions.

The public mind at the South was said to be in a high state of agitation; it was highly important that it should be quieted, and all reflecting men could not but perceive that the constant and excited discussions here, on the introduction of these petitions, were calculated to accomplish any thing but to quiet the troubled waters. They could only serve to impress the abolitionists of the North with the idea that they had become, or were becoming, wonderfully formidable, and increase the apprehensions which the slaveholders of the South so naturally cherished. The animated and ofttimes bitter discussions, provoked so constantly here by the offer of these petitions, could only serve them to do mischief at both ends: to stimulate the abolitionists to greater exertions, and increase the alarm of those upon whom their mischievous doings were designed so prejudicially and disastrously to operate. It was highly important, then, that some movement should here be made, that some plan shouid here be adopted, by which the mischievous consequences of constant discussion and agitation might be avoided; and that very large and decided majority, which voted for the resolutions of the gentleman from South Carolina, hailed his proposition as the sure, the acceptable means, by which the evils which we had so long encountered might be thereafter avoided. The source, too, from which they emanated (a gentleman from a slaveholding State) was well calculated to make the remedy which he intended to work more complete. It is not assuming too much, sir, to suppose and affirm that all who voted for his resolutions did so under a conviction that this whole subject had received its quietus, at least till after the report of this instructed committee should come in; but now, sir, if we sustain the decision of the Chair, and adopt the course contended for by the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. WISE,] then we will indeed have labored in vain to dispose, even for a season, of this troublesome subject. All the fond hopes of those who supported the resolutions of the gentleman from South Carolina will be blasted, and a conflict, unprofitable as it is mischievous and painful, will again be commenced on this floor. He begged gentlemen to look to consequences before they voted upon this question.

Mr. V. contended that the resolutions of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. PINCKNEY,] now that they were adopted, had all the force and efficacy of a standing rule of this House; and when we recurred to the manner in which they were introduced here, we would be more ready to admit that they had all the essential characteristics, and should therefore have all the force, of a standing rule. Were they introduced in reference to, or provoked by, any particular petition? No. The honorable gentleman from South Carolina had of fered them as independent propositions, not applying to any particular isolated petition or document, but as general rules to dispose not only of the abolition petitions that had been presented, but to direct the disposition of those which might afterwards be presented. It was competent for a majority of this House to establish a general rule, and then it could be rescinded, in reference to a particular case, only by a vote of two thirds of the House. If it was competent for the House to establish standing rules, in relation to any subject of great interest to the nation, (which no gentleman would deny,) then this was, to all intents and purposes, one of the standing rules of the House, which directed "that all petitions which might thereafter be presented should be referred to a select committee, with instructions to make such a report as should guard against the future influx of these agitating documents into this hall." How can gentlemen, then, in the face of this standing order or rule of the House, object to the reception of the petitions? Sir, (said Mr. V.,) I voted for the resolutions,

[FEB. 23, 1836.

(and so, according to the most obvious rules of common sense, must every gentleman who voted for them have voted for them,) on the as-umption that the petitions, if presented, would be received; for, sir, the reference of the petitions, which the resolutions so emphatically orders, presupposes the reception of them. You cannot refer a thing to a select or general committee before it is received; and he was sorry to hear his honorable friend from North Carolina [Mr. BYNUM] a few days ago contend that he did not consider the resolutions as imposing any obligation to receive these petitions. He did not consider the reception of them as so very respectful to the petitioners, when they were referred for the very purpose of not only procuring the rejection of their prayer, but of calling forth such arguments and expostulations as should guard against our being troubled with them hereafter. To receive a thing for the purpose of killing it, was not, in his humble estimation, such a reception of it as was objectionable on the score of respect to those who sent it here.

But gentlemen tell us they want discussion. They do not like to be muzzled when these petitions come here. Sir, (said Mr. V.,) how completely has the policy of a certain section of this country changed within a few short years. He well recollected that, less that two years ago, upon the introduction of one of these petitions praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, a discussion was commenced in relation to it, in which some gentlemen from the South evinced a disposition to participate, when an honorable and distinguished gentleman from Virginia, whose great experi ence gave him a well-merited influence bere, [Mr. Archer, now not a member,] rose in his place, and admonished southern gentlemen, by every consideration of regard to their great interest, not to discuss this

matter.

[Here the SPEAKER interrupted Mr. V., and said he was travelling out of the legitimate range of debate.]

Mr. V. said he had many things more to say; but he was apprehensive that he would be obliged very soon to choose the alternative which his friend from Virginia [Mr. GARLAND] had just submitted to with so much grace, viz: take his seat, and forego the residue of his speech.

He would, however, before he closed, remind the House on what grounds the reception of these petitions was objected to, before the adoption of the resolutions of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina.

[Here Mr. GARLAND called Mr. V. to order, and the Speaker decided that he was out of order.]

Mr. V. then concluded by remarking that, for the reasons which he had already urged, and for ninety-nine other reasons, that he could have urged, if he had not been arrested by calls of order, he would vote to reverse the decision of the Speaker.

Mr. MANNING, of South Carolina, rose next, and spoke as follows:

Mr. Speaker: Should the decision of the Chair, which has been made, remain unreversed, then this strange anomaly will be forced to result from it: that the resolution offered by my colleague from South Carolina, [Mr. PINCKNEY, ] and adopted by an overwhelming majority of this House, intended to answer a definite and special object, will be wholly defeated; because it will be essentially changed, so as to fail in answering the most important purposes for which it was originated, and on account of which it was supported by its friends. The objects, highly important as we believe them to be, intended to be accomplished by its adoption, will, after the mature and deliberate action of this branch of Congress, be wholly changed. I trust that no skill, however adroitly or powerfully used, will ever so far succeed as to prevent the full action of this resolution from effectuating those

important final results which the originator and friends of it do most ardently anticipate. We hope in the God of our country, that the exponent of this will be such as to gladden the hearts of patriots; and sooth arising irritations, by renewing confidence in every portion of this widely extended country. I regard this resolution as a settled rule for this House, as much so as any which it can adopt under its legitimate functional action. No parlia mentary law, sanctioned by wisdom and consecrated by usage, can be more so. If the Speaker can by his deci. sion reverse this resolution, which expresses and means "that all the memorials which have been offered, or may hereafter be presented, to this House, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, be referred to a select committee," &c., so as to mean no more than that all petitions or memorials which had been received at the time of the adoption of the resolution shall be referred to the select committee raised under it, and that therefore all of a like character, subsequently introduced, could be allowed to take any other direction, then the whole character, scope, and extent of it will be so limited as to countervail the specified and declared object of it. If this be true, then he has power to suspend, alter, or change, any deliberate act of this House, intended as a rule for its governance.

I know full well the responsibility and delicacy of the Speaker's situation. I feel and acknowledge how important it is to the orderly management and proper deliberation of this body that he should be sustained by all parties in his general efforts to preserve proper decorum. I would do all in my power, generally, to sustain the Speaker; but, in this instance, I feel a paramount duty to myself and to my country to urge upon this House a reversal of his decision. I wish that this course had been pursued at the very first moment when indications were given that the usual mode of disposing of these memorials and petitions was to be abandoned. The usual practice of both branches of Congress has been to lay them on the table, or to refer them to a committee. This has been the practice not only of this House, but of the Senate also. There they were laid, there they have remained, to sleep that sleep of oblivion which they so justly merit. On some occasions such petitions were referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia, from whose safe keeping they never escaped to see light of day, or to accomplish that magnitude of evil which they were calcu. lated to produce, through the agency of wicked or thoughtless citizens, who originated them or sent them here. It has been painful to many, and indeed to most of this House, that we have been carried away from that practice of both Houses of Congress, in the disposition of anti-slavery memorials and petitions, which, heretofore, has been found so safe and politic. We were driven reluctantly to pursue some mode by which we hoped to arrest that tendency of things here, which we deeply feared might lead to incalcuable evils and to dangerous results. We hoped, by this resolution, to stay debate, to prevent discussion, to keep down irritating, heartburning invectives, and to unite Congress by a strong expres. sion of its feelings and opinions, both as regards the States and the District of Columbia; so as to remove doubts, give renewed security, and unite us once more in the bonds of common interest and of united affections; and that we might meet and unite upon a broad and common ground, from which distracting and agitating questions might be avoided, and where varying and practically unimportant abstract notions and opinions might have no influence in preventing useful and practical results. Our aim has been to reach practical objects, to prevent discussion, to keep down excitement of one portion of the Union against the other, to restore harmony, confidence, and that feeling of security to life, liberty, and property, without which Governments can

[H. OF R.

not long exist in this age of the world, and without which they would, if they could exist, be a curse.

Sir, I have been filled with anxiety and care at the course which things are taking in this country. My bed is not refreshing to me, as it used to be. Unhappy visions flit across my mind; thorns are planted under my pillow; the air does not refresh me as in other days; the sunbeams do not bring those gladdening and animating sensations to my frame, as was the case when our southern country was happier and more united; when the South, the land of generous feeling and of noble sentitiment, the land of hospitality and of elegant and polished life, of warm, impassioned, and sweeping eloquence, and of moral and intellectual power, was one and united. These are the bright features by which our southern States have ever been characterized; these are the fine traits which adorn the lovely character of the South. This interesting country, in earlier and happier days, was united, was full of hope, and rioted in the grand prospective of the distant future; and as the series of events unfolded the rising prosperity of our State and common country, all was joy, hope, and gladness. The times are changing; slowly operating causes are producing discontents; undefined apprehensions are succeeding to full and unlimited confidence; a thrilling sensibility has been awakened, under clouded apprehensions that attempts may be made to unsettle the existing order of things by an interference directly in the District of CoJumbia, at no distant day, with the rights of the slaveowners; and by making this a mere first move, into a more extended and general system of operation in the slaveholding States at some still more distant day. The object of the friends of this resolution is to disabuse the public; to substitute for improper, correct statements; to present just views of northern sentiment and feeling, in relation to our institutions; and to give the other portions of our common country an opportunity of putting down those wild and erratic movements at the North, by which those who aim at pressing their memorials and petitions upon Congress, that they may produce discussion, excite feelings, and thus force themselves and their objects into the notice and under the consideration of a thinking, speaking, and writing age, may fall short of their aim. Their success will best be secured, and their ends best answered, if they can but so far press themselves and their objects upon the notice of the country as to produce excitement, awaken resentment, or elicit abuse. Under the silence of contempt, or under the indignant rebukes of the lovers of order and stable government, they will dwindle down to their proper and safe dimensions. If let alone, they will sink into that insignificance which they merit; they will sink under those rebukes, from the moral and intellectual forces of our northern brethren, which seem to await them. If they progress, the battle must be, will be, fought at the North. The good of society, the safety and happiness of every portion of this country, will bring about this result; for if these crusaders against the rights and interests of the slaveholding States are permitted by northern portions of this country to move on in their erratic course, they will produce such throes and convulsions, not only in the South, but in the North, that the established order of things will become unsettled; the reign of law and of liberty will be endangered.

The South, sir, ought never to debate this question; it ought never to discuss it; for discussion will produce excitement, one degree of excitement will beget another; a warm and animated southern excitement, will, nay, must, produce a corresponding northern excitement; each will grow in character and in degree, until a grand northern interest may stand opposed to a grand southern interest. The North, then, becomes arrayed against the South, and the South against the North. I will not allow myself

his perfect devotion to the true interest of the Southcould not, as a supporter of the true theory of the Gov ernment, do otherwise than vote that this principle of the Government should not be violated, and that the memorial "should be committed."

In 1790, on the presentment of a memorial praying for the abolition of slavery in the States, debate arose, and began to take a warm and inflammatory character, and to assume such an aspect as to make it proper at once to dispose of the irritating subject. Mr. Madison, then a member of Congress, moved to refer it to a select committee. This was done. The report was made; this satisfied Congress and the country. Within a few years, petitions of a similar kind were referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia. A strong report was made by Mr. Doddridge, of Virginia, which was acceptable to Congress, and which satisfied the country.

Sir, excited gentlemen at the South are surely not aware of the extent and character of the injury they are doing to our interests, by discussions on the memorials and petitions which are sent here by unreflecting or wicked abolitionists. Is it not bad policy to bring either their newspapers, their books, or their false pictures, into public notoriety? Is this not accomplishing one of the objects which they most ardently desire?

The tendency of this course of action on the one side, and of the counteraction on the other, is, I contend, to throw the elements of civil society into dangerous commotions. The truth of this is deeply impressed upon my convictions, and I feel that something ought and must be done to arrest the tendencies which are rapidly developing themselves.

How different was every thing in relation to this subject during the last session of Congress, to what it has been during the present session. I was gratified then, as a southern man, and as an American citizen, to observe the direction given to such anti-slavery memorials as were presented. As they were offered, then, they were successively laid on the table, and were never again called up. This was in conformity with the common usage, and, with the few exceptions stated, has been the invariable practice of Congress, from the origin of this Government to this time. Not a word, during the whole session, was spoken, to the best of my recollection, on abolition, either on the floor of Congress or elsewhere.

I deplore it as a deep misfortune, that the common practice of the Congress of the United States has been abandoned; that the course of southern presses and southern policy has been abandoned; that the order of business and the time of this House, have been, to a considerable extent, occupied with the discussion of these miserably disturbing petitions and memorials.

From my earliest recollections, from my childhood up to this time, it has ever been the settled and fixed policy of the southern people never to write, to speak, or to print, any thing on this all-absorbing question. Consult the old men of this day--look over your public legisla tive journals-look over the columns of the newspapers in the southern States, and you will find nothing to dis prove what I have here asserted. Sir, I am not mistaken: this has been the settled policy of the South, and wherefore depart from it?

The slave property of the slaveholding States has been, and is, so surrounded and guarded by the sanctions of prescriptive right, by long lines of inheritances, by the approbation of civilized man at that period; and, since its first institution, by the joint purchase with the united capital of northern and southern men of this kind of property; by the sanctions of laws, compacts, and constitutions; by the approval of a purely virtuous and enlightened clergy; and, more than all, by the arrangements under the plans of Divine Providence, that

[H. OF R.

no question or doubt could ever be entertained by us. Our policy has been, and still is, never to discuss, never to entertain discussions. And if the countless guards, which we believe are sufficiently strong to protect and to secure our rights, should fail us, we should then be compelled to employ all those means of self-defence and protection which the providence of God bas placed amply within our reach.

What I have said is not the opinion of yesterday. It is one which was publicly expressed, and which was, I presume, publicly recorded, in 1826.

One objection urged against the resolution under consideration is, that it is improper to reaffirm that Congress has no power to interfere with slavery in the States. How can a reiteration of a self-evident proposition impair or weaken its force? Can the repetition, for ten millions of times, that two and two make four, impair this self-evident truth? Or the reiteration of the truth, that the whole is greater than a part, weaken, one jot or tittle, the certainty of this postulate? Or can the fundamental truth, that Congress has no power to interfere with slavery in the States, add to or take from its certainty? It cannot. I believe, with many who have voted for and supported the resolutions, that Congress has no competent power to interfere with the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia. I have already declared that this is my own belief; but, sir, all the friends of southern rights do not believe as we do, but enter. tain a difference of opinion on an abstract_constitutional question, with regard to the powers of Congress over this District. Those gentlemen who differ from us on this point are as staunch and abiding, nay, as devoted friends of our institutions, as the purest and loftiest patriots to be found on earth. Was it politic or expedient, under these circumstances, to assume a ground on which, for practical results, the advocates and friends of southern rights and southern security, under the compromises of the constitution, were unavoidably to be separated? Was it right to bring on a forced and unnatural action of Congress on the constitutional question, when it was to result in an impolitic division and separation of our friends? Was it politic that a weak vote should go forth, making it appear to the world that the great majority of Congress were against the rights and interests of the South This would have given a false and unnatural presentation of the true feeling of Congress to the people of the United States. It would have produced distrust, created unkind feelings, and would ultimately have had an evil bearing on the safety and happiness of this country.

I approve the resolution offered by my colleague, [Mr. PINCKNEY,] most cordially. I say to him, to this House, and to my country, that I believe his motives are honest and disinterested; and that his conduct on this occasion is worthy of that name which he bears, and which, connected as it is with the history of this country, is dear, and ever will be so, to the American people.

Sir, if this resolution fail to effectuate its legitimate and laudable object, it will be because the opportunity afforded for quieting the country, and for obtaining for all useful results a strong and decided declaration from Congress, shall be unwisely defeated. It will be defeated by creating, under unjust excitement, and from bitter invectives against our northern friends, counteractions to the efforts which they have been and are still making to rebuke and prostrate the wild and unhallowed efforts of those wicked men who are acting without a just regard to the rights and interests of the South, or without foreseeing the throes and convulsions which must inevitably result from their course of action, should it not be arrested.

If these reckless agitators continue their course, and northern integrity and northern patriotism should not