These, sir, are the sentiments which make abolitionists formidable, and set at nought all your councils for their overthrow.  The honorable Senator not only admits that abolitionists are formidable, but that they consist of three classes.  The friends of humanity and justice, or those actuated by those principles, compose one class.  These form a very numerous class, and the acknowledgment of the Senator proves the immutable principles upon which opposition to slavery rests.  Men are opposed to it from principles of humanity and justice—­men are abolitionists, he admits, on that account.  We thank the Senator for teaching us that word, we intend to improve it.  The next class of abolitionists, the Senator says, are so, apparently, for the purpose of advocating the right of petition.  What are we to understand from this?  That the right of petition needs advocacy.  Who has denied this right, or who has attempted to abridge it?  The slaveholding power, that power which avoids open discussion, and the free exercise of opinion; it is that power alone which renders the advocacy of the right of petition necessary, having seized upon all the powers of the Government.  It is fast uniting together those opposed to its iron rule, no matter to what political party they have heretofore belonged; they are uniting with the first class, and act from principles of humanity and justice; and if the mists and shades of slavery were not the atmosphere in which gentlemen were enveloped, they would see constant and increasing numbers of our most worthy and intelligent citizens attaching themselves to the two classes mentioned, and rallying under the banners of abolitionism.  They are compelled to go there, if the gentleman will have it so, in order to defend and perpetuate the liberties of the country.  The hopes of the oppressed spring up afresh from this discussion of the gentleman.  The third class, the Senator says, are those who, to accomplish their ends, act without regard to consequences.  To them, all the rights of property, of the States, of the Union, the Senator says, are nothing.  He says they aim at other objects than those they profess—­emancipation in the District of Columbia.  No, says the Senator, their object is universal emancipation, not only in the District, but in the Territories and in the States.  Their object is to set free three millions of negro slaves.  Who made the Senator, in his place here, the censor of his fellow citizens?  Who authorized him to charge them with other objects than those they profess?  How long is it since the Senator himself, on this floor, denounced slavery as an evil?  What other inducements or object had he then in view?  Suppose universal emancipation to be the object of these petitioners; is it not a noble and praiseworthy object; worthy of the Christian, the philanthropist, the statesman, and the citizen?  But the Senator says, they (the petitioners) aim to excite one portion of the country against another.