ed States,
to _make the prohibition of slavery_ a condition of their admission into
the Union: Therefore,

"Resolved, That our Senators be instructed, and our members of Congress
be requested, to oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of an
territory not comprised as aforesaid, without making _the prohibition of
slavery_ therein an indispensable condition of admission." ]

The tenor of Mr. Tallmadge's speech on the right of petition, and of Mr.
Webster's on the reception of abolition memorials, may be taken as
universal exponents of the sentiments of northern statesmen as to the
power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

An explicit declaration, that an "_overwhelming majority_" of the
_present_ Congress concede the power to abolish slavery in the District,
has just been made by Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, a member of Congress
from South Carolina, in a letter published in the Charleston Mercury of
Dec. 27, 1837. The following is an extract:

"The time has arrived when we must have new guaranties under the
constitution, or the Union must be dissolved. _Our views of the
constitution are not those of the majority_. AN OVERWHELMING
MAJORITY _think that by the constitution, Congress may abolish
slavery in the District of Columbia--may abolish the slave trade
between the States; that is, it may prohibit their being carried
out of the State in which they are--and prohibit it in all the
territories, Florida among them. They think_, NOT WITHOUT STRONG
REASONS, _that the power of Congress extends to all of these
subjects_."

_Direct testimony_ to show that the power of Congress to abolish slavery
in the District, has always till recently been _universally conceded_,
is perhaps quite superfluous. We subjoin, however, the following:

The Vice-President of the United States in his speech on the Missouri
question, quoted above, after contending that the restriction of slavery
in Missouri would be unconstitutional, declares, that the power of
Congress over slavery in the District "COULD NOT BE QUESTIONED." In the
speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., also quoted above, he declares the power of
Congress to abolish slavery in the District to be "UNDOUBTED."

Mr. Sutherland, of Penn., in a speech in the House of Representatives,
on the motion to print Mr. Pinckney's Report, is thus reported in the
Washington Globe, of May 9th, '36. "He replied to the remark that t