printed; paeans sung to it by the
slave power, while the petitions I offer, from as honorable, free,
high-minded and patriotic American citizens as any in this District,
are spit upon, and turned out of doors as an _unclean thing_! Genius
of liberty! how long will you sleep under this iron power of
oppression? Not content with ruling over their own slaves, they claim
the power to instruct Congress on the question of receiving petitions;
and yet we are tauntingly and sneeringly told that we have nothing to
do with the existence of slavery in the country, a suggestion as
absurd as it is ridiculous. We are called upon to make laws in favor
of slavery in the District, but it is denied that we can make laws
against it; and at last the right of petition on the subject, by the
people of the free States, is complained of as an improper
interference. I leave it to the Senator to reconcile all these
difficulties, absurdities, claims and requests of the people of this
District, to the country at large; and I venture the opinion that he
will find as much difficulty in producing the belief that he is
correct now, that he has found in obtaining the same belief that he
was before correct in his views and political course on the subject of
banks, internal improvements, protective tariffs, &c., and the
regulation, by acts of Congress, of the productive industry of the
country, together with all the compromises and coalitions he has
entered into for the attainment of those objects. I rejoice, however,
that the Senator has made the display he has on this occasion. It is a
powerful shake to awaken the sleeping energies of liberty, and his
voice, like a trumpet, will call from their slumbers millions of
freemen to defend their rights; and the overthrow of his theory now,
is as sure and certain, by the force of public opinion, as was the
overthrow of all his former schemes, by the same mighty power.

I feel, Mr. President, as if I had wearied your patience, while I am
sure my own bodily powers admonish me to close; but I cannot do so
without again reminding my constituents of the greetings that have
taken place on the consummation and ratification of the treaty,
offensive and defensive, between the slaveholding and bank powers, in
order to carry on a war against the liberties of our country, and to
put down the present administration. Yes, there is no voice heard from
New England now. Boston and Faneuil Hall are silent as death. The free
da