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an honorable member from Maine, (Mr. Jarvis,) with the amendment thereto proposed by an honorable member from Virginia, (Mr. Wise,) and every other paper or proposition that may be submitted in relation to that subject, be referred to a select committee; (2.) With instructions to report, that congress possesses no constitutional authority to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery in any of the states of this confederacy; (3.) And that, in the opinion of this house, congress ought not to interfere in any way with slavery in the District of Columbia, because it would be a violation of the public faith, unwise, impolitic, and dangerous to the union."

The first clause of the resolution was adopted by a vote of 174 to 48; the second, 201 to 7. The third was divided; and the first member of the same, which declared that congress ought not to interfere with slavery in the district, was carried, 163 to 47; the remaining part, 129 to 74. Of those who voted in the negative on the last question, all, with a few exceptions, were whigs from the northern states; the administration members generally from these states, in both houses, having joined the south on this question. Mr. Pinckney was severely censured by several southern members for having moved the resolution; because the power

of congress over slavery in the states had not been brought in question; and the affirmation of the proposition that congress had no such power, was to admit that it needed affirmation; and also because they were opposed to the discussion of the question. Mr. Wise, on a subsequent occasion, alluding to the mover of the resolution, said: “I hiss him as a deserter from the principles of the south on the slavery question.”

On the 18th of May, Mr. Pinckney, from the select committee appointed on his motion, reported three resolutions; the first denying the power of congress over slavery in the states; the second, declaring that congress ought not to interfere with it in the District of Columbia. The third, which was not contemplated by the instructions to the committee, required all petitions and papers relating to the subject, to be at once laid upon the table, without being printed or referred, and without any other action on them. On the 25th of May, the vote was taken on the first resolution, under the pressure of the previous question. Mr. Adams said, if the house would allow him five minutes, he would prove the resolution to be false. Eight members were understood to have voted in the negative: Messrs. Adams, Jackson, and Philips, of Mass., Everett and Slade, of Vt., Clark, Denney, and Potts, of Penn. The second resolution was adopted the next day, 132 to 45°; the third, 117 to 68.

In the senate, the principal discussion on the disposal of abolition

petitions was upon one from the society of the “Frierds” in the state of Pennsylvania, adopted at the Caln quarterly meeting. It was presented the 11th of January, by Mr. Buchanan, who said he was in favor of giving the memorial a respectful reception; but he wished to put the question at rest. He should therefore move that the memorial be read, and that the prayer of the memorialists be rejected. The question on receiving the petition was, on the 9th of March, decided in the affirmative : ayes, 36; noes, 10; the latter all from southern senators. On the 11th, the whole subject, including the rejection of the petition, was agreed to, 34 to 6. Those who voted in the negative, were, Messrs. Davis and Webster, from Mass., Prentiss, of Vt., Knight, of R. I., and Southard, of N. J.

But the most important action of the senate was upon a bill to prohibit the circulation of abolition publications by mail. The president had in his annual message called the attention of congress to the subject. He said: “I must also invite your attention to the painful excitement produced in the south, by attempts to circulate, through the mails, inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints, and in various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war." He said it was

“fortunate for the country, that the good sense and generous feeling of the people of the non-slaveholding states" were so strong “against the proceedings of the misguided persons who had engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, as to authorize the hope that these attempts will no longer be persisted in." But if these expressions of the public will should not effect the desirable result, he did not doubt that the non-slaveholding states would exercise their authority in suppressing this interference with the constitutional rights of the south.” And he would respectfully suggest the passing of a law that would “prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the southern states, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection."

This part of the message was, on motion of Mr. Calhoun, referred to a select committee, which, in accordance with his wishes, was composed mainly of senators from the slave-holding states. They were, Messrs. Calhoun, King, of Georgia, Mangum, Linn, and Davis; the last alone being from the free states. The report of the committee was made the 4th of February. Notwithstanding four-fifths of its members were southern, only Messrs. Calhoun and Mangum were in favor of the entire report. The accompanying bill prohibited postmasters from knowingly putting into the mail any printed or written paper or pictorial representation relating to slavery, addressed to any person in a state in which

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their circulation was forbidden; and it prohibited postmasters in such state from delivering such papers to any person not authorized by the laws of the state to receive them. And the postmasters of the offices where such papers were deposited, were required to give potice of the same from time to time; and if the papers were not, within one month, withdrawn by the person depositing them, they were to be burnt or other. wise destroyed. Mr. Linn, though dissenting from parts of the report, approved the bill.

Mr. Calhoun, in his report, reiterated his favorite doctrine of state sovereignty; from which he deduced the inherent right of a state to defend itself against internal dangers; and he denied the right of the general government to assist a state, even in case of domestic violence, except on application of the authorities of the state itself. He said it belonged to the slaveholding states, whose institutions were in danger, and not to congress, as the message supposed, to determine what papers were incendiary; and he asserted the proposition, that each state was under obligation to prevent its citizens from disturbing the peace or endangering the security of other states; and that, in case of being disturbed or endangered, the latter had a right to demand of the former the adoption of measures for their protection. And if it should neglect its duty, the states whose peace was assailed might resort to means to protect themselves, as if they were separate and independent communities.

As motives to suppress by law the efforts of the abolitionists, the report mentioned the danger of their accomplishing their object, the abolition of slavery in the southern states, and the consequent evils which would attend it. It would destroy property to the amount of $950,000,000, and impoverish an entire section of the union. By destroying the relation between the two races, the improvement of the condition of the colored people, now so rapidly going on, and by which they had been, both physically and intellectually, and in respect to the comforts of fife, elevated to a condition enjoyed by the laboring class in few countries, and greatly superior to that of the free people of the same race in the non-slaveholding states, would be arrested; and the two races would be placed in a state of conflict which must end in the expulsion or extirpation of one or the other.

But for the fact that the president's message expressed similar apprehensions of “the horrors of a servile war," and contained a similar suggestion of the interposition of the state governments to suppress the “wicked attempts" of the anti-slavery societies to interfere with southern rights, it would be almost incredible that Mr. Calhoun could have seriously entertained such fenrs, or claimed for the states such powers.

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There was, however, between the message and the report this difference, that the former was silent as to the right of the slave states “to resort to means to protect themselves" against the incendiary associations.

The bill, reported by Mr. Calhoun, sustained by the combined influence of his own report and the executive recommendation, made its way nearly through the senate. Mr. Webster opposed the bill, because it was vague and obscure, in not sufficiently defining the publications to be prohibited. Whether for or against slavery, if they "touched the subject,” they would come under the prohibition. Even the constitution might be prohibited. And the deputy-postmaster must decide, and decide correctly, under pain of being removed from office! He must make himself acquainted with the laws of all the states on the subject, and decide on them, however variant they might be with each other. The bill also conflicted with that provision of the constitution which guarantied the freedom of speech and of the press. If a newspaper came to him, he had a property in it; and how could any man take that property and burn it without due form of law? And how could that newspaper be pronounced an unlawful publication, and having no property in it, with. out a legal trial ? He argued against the right to examine into the nature of publications sent to the post-office, and said that the right of an individual in his papers was secured to him in every free country in the world.

Mr. Clay said the papers, while in the post-office or in the mail, did no harm : it was their circulation—their being taken out of the mail, and the use made of them—that constituted the mischief; and the state authorities could apply the remedy. The instant a prohibited paper was handed out, whether to a citizen or a sojourner, he was subject to the law which might compel him to surrender or to burn it. The bill was vague and indefinite, unnecessary and dangerous. It applied to nonslaveholding as well as to slaveholding states—to papers touching slavery, as well for as against it: and a non-slaveholding state might, under this bill, prohibit publications in defense of slavery. But the law would be inoperative: the postmaster was not amenable, unless he delivered the papers knowing them to be incendiary; and he had only to plead ignorance to avoid the penalty of the law. Mr C. wished to know whence congress derived the power to pass this law. The senator from Pennsylvania had asked if the post-office power did not give the right to say what should be carried in the mails. There was no such power as that claimed in the bill. If such doctrine prevailed, the government might designate the persons, or parties, or classes, who should have the exclu. sive benefit of the mails.

Before the question was taken on the engrossment of the bill, a mo

tion by Mr. Calhoun to amend it so as prevent the withdrawal of the prohibited papers, was negatived, 15 to 15. An amendment offered by Mr. Grundy, restricting the punishment of deputy-postmasters to removal from office, was agreed to ; and the bill was reported to the senate. Mr. Calhoun renewed his motion in senate, and it was again lost, 15 to 15. Mr. Benton, in his late work, says, that, in committee of the whole the vice-president did not vote in the case of a tie. The question being then taken on the engrossment, there was again a tie: 18 to 18. The vicepresident having temporarily left the chair, returned, and gave the casting vote in the affirmative. Of the senators from the free states voting in the affirmative, were Messrs. Buchanan, Tallmadge and Wright. Those who voted in the negative from the slave states, were Messrs. Benton, Clay, and Kent, of Maryland.

This casting vote of Mr. Van Buren, and the several votes of Mr. Wright, who voted with Mr. Calhoun on this subject, have been justified by their friends on the ground that Mr. Calhoun, (to use the language of Mr. Benton,) “had made the rejection of the bill a test of alliance with northern abolitionists, and a cause for the secession of the southern states; and if this bill had been rejected by Mr. Van Buren's vote, the

whole responsibility of its loss would have been thrown upon him and • the north, and the south inflamed against those states and himself—the

more so, as Mr. White, of Tennessee, the opposing democratic candidate for the presidency, gave

his votes for the bill.” The several successive tie votes have been ascribed to design—that of placing Mr. Van Buren in this position. With this intent, other senators voted for the bill, and still others absented themselves, knowing it would not finally pass. This supposition was strengthened by the full vote given on the question of its final passage : ayes, 19; noes, 25; only 4 absent: the three senators from the free states, Buchanan, Tallmadge and Wright, again voting in the affirmative; and Benton, Clay, Crittenden, Goldsborough and Kent, of Maryland, Leigh, Naudain, of Delaware, in all seven, from slave states, in the negative. Here ended another attempt of the south at practical nullification.

On the 11th of December, 1838, Mr. Atherton, of New Hampshire, offered a series of resolutions, denouncing petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and against the slave trade between the states, as a plan indirectly to destroy that institution within the several states ; declaring that congress has no right to do that indirectly which it can not do directly; that the agitation of this question for the above purpose, is against the true spirit and meaning of the constitution, and an infringement of the rights of the states affected, and a breach of the public faith on which they entered into the confederacy; and that

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