by the arbitrary means by which its adoption was secured. No representative of the People was permitted to lift up his voice against it—to plead the commands of the Constitution which is violated—his own privileges and duties which it contemned—the rights of his constituents on which it trampled—the chains of justice and humanity which it impiously outraged. Its advocates were afraid and ashamed to discuss it, and forbidding debate, they perpetrated in silence the most atrocious act that has ever disgraced an American Legislature^A. And was no reason whatever, it may be asked, assigned for this bold invasion of our rights, this insult to the sympathies of our common nature? Yes—connected with the resolution was a preamble explaining its OBJECT. Read it, fellow countrymen, and be equally astonished at the impudence of your rulers in avowing such an object, and at their folly in adopting such an expedient to effect it. The lips of a free people are to be sealed by insult and injury!

A: A debate was allowed on a motion to re-commit the report, for the purpose of preparing a resolution that Congress has no constitutional power to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia; but when the sense of the House was to be taken on the resolution reported by the committees, all debate was prevented by the previous question.

"Whereas, it is extremely important and desirable that the AGITATION on this subject should be finally ARRESTED, for the purpose of restoring tranquillity to the public mind, your committee respectfully recommend the following resolution."

ORDER REIGNS IN WARSAW, were the terms in which the triumph of Russia over the liberties of Poland was announced to the world. When the right of petition shall be broken down—when no whisper shalt be heard in Congress in behalf of human rights—when the press shall be muzzled, and the freedom of speech destroyed by gag-laws, then will the slaveholders announce, that TRANQUILLITY IS RESTORED TO THE PUBLIC MIND!

Fellow countrymen! is such the tranquillity you desire—is such the heritage you would leave to your children? Suffer not the present outrage, by effecting its avowed object, to invite farther aggressions on your rights. The chairman of the committee boasted that the number of petitioners the present session, for the abolition of slavery in the District, was only thirty-four thousand! Let us resolve, we beseech you, that at the next session the number shall be A MILLION. Perhaps our one hundred and seventeen representatives will then abandon in despair their present dangerous and unconstitutional expedient for tranquilizing the public mind.

The purpose of this address, is not to urge upon you our own views of the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety of its immediate abolition; but to call your attention to the conduct of your rulers. Let no one think for a moment, that because he is not an abolitionist, his liberties are not and will not be invaded. We have no rights, distinct from the rights of the whole people. Calumny, falsehood, and popular violence, have been employed in vain, to tranquilize abolitionists. It is now proposed to soothe them, by despoiling them of their Constitutional rights; but they cannot be despoiled alone. The right of petition and the freedom of debate are as sacred and valuable to those who dissent from our opinions, as they are to ourselves. Can the Constitution at the same time secure liberty to you, and expose us to oppression—give you freedom of speech, and lock our lips—respect your right of petition, and treat ours with contempt? No, fellow countrymen!—we must be all free, or all