slave; and if a slave maliciously slay a white man, or a fellow-slave, he is guilty of murder. In this and in many other respects, slaves are persons. The gentleman regards them as persons in all respects; and seeing two-fifths of these persons excluded from representation on this floor, he yet complains that our influence is increased in consequence of our slave population. Suppose there to be five millions of slaves in the United States (we all know there are not so many by great odds), three millions enter into the computation, and are represented on this floor. Set them all free, and the whole five millions would come in, and our influence and power be thereby increased by the additional two millions. But without special legislation for that purpose, free men of color would not have the right to vote any more than slaves have that right. The civil and political rights of the negro are not increased by the mere act of setting him free. He may rise by mere possibility in the scale of social importance; but the chances are, that in the course of three or four generations, he will relapse into his original position, and become little else than a degraded animal.

ANTONIO PACHECO.

In the House of Representatives, December 29, 1848, on the bill making provision for paying the heirs of Antonio Pacheco, for a negro slave, employed by the United States Army in Florida as a guide, who escaped to the Indians and was removed with them by the Government to the lands reserved for the Indians in the West— Mr. BROWN said:

THE views presented by the gentleman who had just taken his seat were of a character so extraordinary as to require an immediate response. They were the views frequently presented by northern men, and by which the people of the North had continually been led into error upon the subject of slavery. The gentleman had said that he did not desire to inflict any torture upon the feelings of southern men. He begged the gentleman to accept his acknowledgments; but he must say, that no one had been seriously injured, or was likely to be, by what had fallen from the gentleman. The people of the South knew their rights, and knowing, dared maintain them both here and elsewhere, and maintain them as men.

The gentleman had said there was nothing in the Constitution of the United States which made slaves property, and therefore that he was not disposed to pay for them when taken for public use. Slaves were

property under the Constitution whenever it subserved the purposes of the Government to consider them as such. If they wanted to levy taxes upon them, then they were property. This Congress might levy taxes upon slaves as property; they might collect them, and put the avails into the coffers of the Union, to defray the expenses of the Government. For that purpose slaves were property. If it was desired to satisfy an execution in favor of the Government against some

southern defaulter-some custom-house officer, some postmaster, or other defaulting agent of the Government-slaves were property enough for that purpose. Whenever it was for the advantage of the Government, their northern friends were ready enough to consider them as property; but when the Government was asked to give fair compensation for such property which had been appropriated to public use, their northern friends found that there was nothing in the Constitution to justify their being regarded as property. The Supreme Court of the United States, sitting at this hour in this capitol, had time and again adjudicated questions involving the right of property in slaves; and never had that court intimated that there was as much as a doubt as to the existence of that right. In the case of Groves vs. Slaughter, among other things, that court had clearly and distinctly recognised the right of property in slaves.

But the gentleman from New Hampshire found that there was nothing in the Constitution recognising the right of property in slaves, and therefore he was not going to give it by his vote. He (Mr. B.) would like to know of the gentleman if there was anything in the Constitution which pointed out a horse, or any other animal or thing, as property? Where was the clause of the Constitution which declared the right of property in a house, in a wooden clock, or any other product of the great state of New Hampshire, or the right of property in corn, in breadstuffs, or in any article of merchandise? The Constitution of the United States was profoundly silent on all these points, as it was upon the question of the right of property in slaves.

So far as the action of this Congress was concerned, the question had time and again been settled, that there was such a thing as the right of property in slaves. But it belonged to gentlemen of the school of politics to which the gentleman from New Hampshire belonged, within the last three or four years to discover that there was no such thing in existence. Why, he would like to know of the gentleman when and where it was that he had made the marvellous discovery, that there could be no right of property in anything unless that thing was specified in the Constitution of the United States.

The Supreme Court, in, he supposed, a thousand cases involving the principle that there was property in slaves, had affirmed, directly or indirectly, that right; Congress also, in repeated instances, had affirmed it. Gentlemen ought to admit some principle as settled. When we had precedent after precedent, both in our judicial decisions and in the action of Congress, all pointing one way, or (to use more approved language) if the question had been "settled by the various departments of the Government," the principle must be regarded as established; and (we were told) we were to expect no veto from the President elect, and he should hope that no objections to it would come from the President's friends.

He repeated, he had not risen for the purpose of discussing the point whether this particular claim was valid, but to correct the improper, the erroneous doctrine which had been promulgated by the gentleman from New Hampshire-a doctrine which, in his judgment, had done more to poison the minds of the northern people, to lead them into error, and shake the foundations of society, than all other false doctrines combined.

SLAVE TRADE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

In the House of Representatives, January 31, 1849, on the relations of Congress to the District of Columbia, in connection with a bill to prohibit the introduction of slaves into the District of Columbia as merchandise,

Mr. BROWN said, he did not design, upon taking the floor at the present time, to enter into a discussion of the various questions which had engaged the attention of the House this morning; but as a member of the committee on the District of Columbia, he desired to say a word with reference to his own position with regard to the introduction of this bill. The bill was almost a literal transcript of what was the law of the state of Mississippi from the year 1837 down to a period within some three or four years past, with one material alteration, namely, a prohibition against any citizen going beyond the boundaries of the District and buying a slave for his own use within the District. The law of the state of Mississippi, to which he referred, was founded upon a provision of the constitution of that state which grew out of apprehensions (whether well founded or not) of servile insurrections in the minds of the framers of that constitution. The provision was at all events incorporated into the constitution, and the act in pursuance thereof, to which he had referred, was drawn by his own hand as a member of the Mississippi legislature. In his capacity as a member of the committee on the District of Columbia, he had pointed to that law as containing suitable provisions to be incorporated into the bill which they were to report. The law was acceptable to the committee; and, with the material alteration to which he had referred, it was copied and reported to the House.

A VOICE. The gentleman is mistaken about the restriction.

Mr. BROWN (continuing) said he was not mistaken. He had said that, by the restriction to which he objected, citizens of the District were not to go beyond the boundaries of the District, and purchase slaves for their own use within the District. There was, indeed, a provision that they might, by inheritance, marriage, or bequest, obtain a title to slaves without the District, and so bring them in; but there was no other provision of the bill by which a citizen of the District could acquire title to slaves in any of the states. He had opposed and objected to this restriction, in the committee, upon the ground that it was never petitioned for by the people. The immediate occasion and basis of the bill was the petition of the mayor and council of the city of Washington. And if he could be induced to vote for a bill of this kind at all, it would be on account of such petition. He did not know that, under any circumstances, it could command his vote; certainly it never could with this restriction.

A word in regard to his own position. He had always believed that, in his representative character upon that floor, he was called upon to represent the expressed will and wishes of the people of the District of Columbia, having, at the same time, due regard to the rights of the

people of the several states, and to the restrictions of the Constitution of the United States. If the people of the District of Columbia petitioned for any object which might be granted without violation of the Constitution, or infringement of the rights of other citizens of the United States, he was bound to support their petition; and it ought to be granted. He felt that he should no more claim for himself the right to represent the people of the District of Columbia, in accordance with the wishes of the people of the fourth congressional district of Mississippi, than that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Giddings] should claim to represent them in accordance with the wishes of his constituents. He was willing to meet gentlemen here on common ground, and claim no more for his particular section than he was willing to accord to every other section of the country. The District of Columbia was no gladiatorial region, where opposing parties were to meet in conflict. This was neutral ground, where the wishes of the people should be fairly represented, having respect always to the rights of others and to the Constitution. He did not believe that the strong party in Congress had any right to pass any law for the District, without respect to the wishes of the people of the District, and without reference to the Constitution and rights of the people outside of the District; but that in all this branch of their public charge, they should have an eye strictly to the Constitution, and to the rights of the whole people. Such was his policy, and would continue to be so long as he remained a representative on that floor. He should never look to the state of Mississippi for the sole rule of his conduct in this department of his duty. For, if gentlemen were to look to the wishes of their constituents in these cases, it would not be long before we should have laws for the District of Columbia framed in obedience to the wishes of the people of New England, or the great West, and having no regard to the wishes of the people here. He wanted no such thing.

In acting upon a petition from the people of this District, his first object was to inquire how far he might go, and still remain within the limits of the Constitution? and then how far he might go without infringing upon the deed of cession by which the District was acquired from the states of Maryland and Virginia? These limits being ascertained, he should be prepared to go for any law desired by the people of the District, which did not require these fixed limits to be transcended. If gentlemen from New England, New York, and elsewhere, were prepared to act upon this rule, he was prepared to go with them. He was glad that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Taylor] had introduced the authority of a late venerable representative from Massachusetts [Mr. John Quincy Adams], in support of the principle, that the people of the District of Columbia were not to be represented according to the views and wishes of the people residing elsewhere in the United States. If his own views did not happen to accord exactly with those of the people here petitioning, it was his duty to conform his views to theirs; and this was manifestly the only right rule upon which these people could be represented. He appealed, therefore, to his friends, the southern delegation, to do what was right upon this question, while he asked only the same thing of gentlemen from the North. He thought gentlemen on all sides might shape their conduct according to the rule he had laid down,

doing no injustice to the District, and giving no just ground of complaint to the states north or south.

Mr. McLANE interposed to ask a question; and (Mr. B. giving way for the purpose) he said he would ask the gentleman whether he went so far with his doctrine as to recognise the right on the part of the people of the District of Columbia to ask of Congress the enactment of a law abolishing slavery in the District?-whether he did not believe that such. an act would be unconstitutional ?-in other words, whether the gentleman's rule went further than to admit of petitions for objects within the federal power to grant, while he would exclude all others, as petitions which should neither be demanded on their part nor granted on ours, for the reason that they were incompatible with the federal powers of Congress?

Mr. BROWN replied, that he hardly thought the gentleman could have misunderstood him. He would say again, that the people of this District, like every other people, had the right to be represented (if they were represented at all) according to their own views and wishes, and not according to the views of people residing elsewhere in the United. States. They had no right to ask, nor had Congress the right to grant, laws for their benefit which would outrage the rights of others, whether citizens of the state of Virginia, Maryland, or any other state. He should always expect every gentleman who desired to protect the rights of the people, whether citizens of Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia, to vote against the abolition of slavery here; for such a policy would make of the District nothing but a receptacle for all the free negroes in the country. He could not go into the question of the constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery here: it was in no way involved in the bill. But he would take occasion to say, he had never conceded the power; and if he had, there were abundant reasons without the Constitution to determine his vote against such a measure.

One word with reference to the complaint made as to gentlemen voting here contrary to their own convictions of right, because of the fear of their constituents. He knew not how it was with the gentleman from New York, but when such a charge was made against him, his reply was, that he was not afraid to give any vote which his judgment might approve. The apprehension of responsibility at home did not swerve him. He was sent here to take responsibility, and he would account himself unfaithful and unworthy, of his trust, if he did not take responsibility on all proper occasions. Upon all questions involving the rights of the South and the southern institution of slavery, he should vote with the South. And if he had any fears on this subject, they were not for himself or his constituents, but rather for the North. If gentlemen desired it of him, he would now tell them, that he felt the necessity, on the part of the South, of standing together upon every question involving the right of property in slaves, the slave trade, and abolition in all its forms. He knew that they must stand together for defence: therefore, as the South voted, so he should vote, till the pressure from without should be withdrawn. The South acted together upon the principle of self-protection and self-preservation. They stood for protection against destruction and annihilation. He knew not the motive which prompted this outward pressure; he felt its existence and he knew that the South acted purely on the defensive; they merely warded off the blow