December 16, 1828.  “Mr. Barnard presented the memorial of the American Convention for promoting the abolition of slavery, held in Baltimore, praying that slavery may be abolished in the District of Columbia.”  Journal U.S.  Senate, 1828-29, p.24.

6.  DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN AND JURISTS IN THE SLAVEHOLDING STATES, HAVE CONCEDED THIS POWER.  The testimony Of Messrs. Doddridge, and Powell, of Virginia, Chief Justice Cranch, and Judges Morsel and Van Ness, of the District, has already been given.  In the debate in Congress on the memorial of the Society of Friends, in 1790, Mr. Madison, in speaking of the territories of the United States, explicitly declared, from his own knowledge of the views of the members of the convention that framed the constitution, as well as from the obvious import of its terms, that in the territories, “Congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery.”  Congress can have no more power over the territories than that of “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever,” consequently, according to Mr. Madison, “it has certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery in the” District.  In March, 1816, Mr. Randolph of Virginia, introduced a resolution for putting a stop to the domestic slave trade within the District.  December 12, 1827, Mr. Barney, of Maryland, presented a memorial for abolition in the District, and moved that it be printed.  Mr. McDuffie, of S.C., objected to the printing, but “expressly admitted the right of Congress to grant to the people of the District any measure which they might deem necessary to free themselves from the deplorable evil.”—­[See letter of Mr. Claiborne of Miss. to his constituents published in the Washington Globe, May 9, 1836.] The sentiments of Mr. Clay of Kentucky, on the subject are well known.  In a speech before the U.S.  Senate, in 1836, he declared the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District “unquestionable.”  Messrs. Blair, of Tennessee, and Chilton, Lyon, and R.M.  Johnson, of Kentucky, A.H.  Shepperd, of N.C., Messrs. Armstrong and Smyth of Va., Messrs. Dorsey, Archer, and Barney, of Md., and Johns, of Del., with numerous others from slave states have asserted the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District.  In the speech of Mr. Smyth, of Virginia, on the Missouri question, January 28, 1820, he says on this point:  “If the future freedom of the blacks is your real object, and not a mere pretence, why do you begin here?  Within the ten miles square, you have undoubted power to exercise exclusive legislation. Produce a bill to emancipate the slaves in the District of Columbia, or, if you prefer it, to emancipate those born hereafter.”

To this may be added the testimony of the present Vice President of the United States, Hon. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky.  In a speech before the U.S.  Senate, February 1, 1820, (National Intelligencer, April 29, 1829,) he says:  “In the District of Columbia, containing a population of 30,000 souls, and probably as many slaves as the whole territory of Missouri, THE POWER OF PROVIDING FOR THEIR EMANCIPATION RESTS WITH CONGRESS ALONE.  Why then, this heart-rending sympathy for the slaves of Missouri, and this cold insensibility, this eternal apathy, towards the slaves in the District of Columbia?”