,"
carefully avoiding the phraseology of the first resolution, and thus in
effect conceding the constitutional power. In a widely circulated
"Address to the electors of the Charleston District," Mr. Pinckney is
thus denounced by his own constituents: "He has proposed a resolution
which is received by the plain common sense of the whole country as a
concession that Congress has authority to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia."

3. It has been conceded by the _citizens of the District_. A petition
for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District, signed by nearly
eleven hundred of its citizens, was presented to Congress, March 24,
1837. Among the signers to this petition, were Chief Justice Cranch,
Judge Van Ness, Judge Morsel, Prof. J.M. Staughton, Rev. Dr. Balch, Rev.
Dr. Keith, John M. Munroe, and a large number of the most influential
inhabitants of the District. Mr. Dickson, of New York, asserted on the
floor of Congress in 1835, that the signers of this petition owned more
than half of the property in the District. The accuracy of this
statement has never been questioned.

This power has been conceded by _grand juries of the District_. The
grand jury of the county of Alexandria, at the March term 1802,
presented the domestic slave trade as a grievance, and said, "We
consider these grievances demanding _legislative_ redress." Jan. 19,
1829, Mr. Alexander, of Virginia, presented a representation of the
grand jury in the city of Washington, remonstrating against "any measure
for the abolition of slavery within said District, unless accompanied by
measures for the removal of the emancipated from the same;" thus, not
only conceding the power to emancipate slaves, but affirming an
additional power, that of _excluding them when free_. See Journal H.R.
1828-9, p. 174.

4. This power has been conceded _by State Legislatures_. In 1828 the
Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed their Senators in Congress "to
procure, if practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia." Jan. 28, 1829, the House of Assembly of New York
passed a resolution, that their "Senators in Congress be instructed to
make every possible exertion to effect the passage of a law for the
abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." In February, 1837,
the Senate of Massachusetts "Resolved, That Congress having exclusive
legislation in the District of Columbia, possess the right to abolish
slavery and the sl