They, who are deterred from favoring the abolition of slavery in the District by the apprehension, that Virginia and Maryland, if not, indeed, the nation at large, might suffer injurious consequences from the measure, overlook the fact, that there is a third party in the case.  It is common to regard the nation as constituting one of the parties—­Virginia and Maryland another, and the only other.  But in point of fact, there is a third party.  Of what does it consist?  Of horses, oxen, and other brutes?  Then we need not be greatly concerned about it—­since its rights in that case, would be obviously subordinate to those of the other parties.  Again, if such be the composition of this third party, we are not to be greatly troubled, that President Wayland and thousands of others entirely overlook its rights and interests; though they ought to be somewhat mindful even of brutes.  But, this third party is composed, not of brutes—­but of men—­of the seven thousand men in the District, who have fallen under the iron hoofs of slavery—­and who, because they are men, have rights equal to, and as sacred as the rights of any other men—­rights, moreover, which cannot be innocently encroached on, even to the breadth of one hair, whether under the plea of “state necessity”—­of the perils of emancipation—­or under any other plea, which conscience-smitten and cowardly tyranny can suggest.

If these lines shall ever be so favored, as to fall under the eye of the venerable and beloved John Quincy Adams, I beg, that, when he shall have read them, he will solemnly inquire of his heart, whether, if he should ever be left to vote against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and thus stab deeply the cause of civil liberty, of humanity, and of God; the guilty act would not result from overlooking the rights and interests, and even the existence itself, of a third party in the case—­and from considering the claims of the nation and those of Virginia and Maryland, as the only claims on which he was called to pass, because they were the claims of the only parties, of which he was aware.

You admit that “the first duty of Congress in relation to the District, of Columbia, is to render it available, comfortable, and convenient as a seat of the government of the whole Union.”  I thank you for an admission, which can be used, with great effect, against the many, who maintain, that Congress is as much bound to consult the interests and wishes of the inhabitants of the District, and be governed by them, as a State Legislature is to study and serve the interests and wishes of its constituents.  The inhabitants of the District have taken up their residence in it, aware, that the paramount object of Congressional legislation is not their, but the nation’s advantage.  They judge, that their disfranchisement and the other disadvantages attending their residence are more than balanced by their favorable position for participating in Governmental patronage and other