of which ladies of my country and my state complained in their petitions, some time since, as rendering this District unpleasant, should they visit the capital of the nation as wives, sisters, daughters, or friends of members of Congress.  Yet, sir, these respectable females were treated here with contemptuous sneers; they were compared, on this floor, to the fish-women of Paris, who dipped their fingers in the blood of revolutionary France.  Sir, if the transaction in slaves here, which I have mentioned, could make such an impression on the heart of a lady, a resident of the District, one who had been used to slaves, and was probably an owner, what would be the feelings of ladies from free states on beholding a like transaction?  I will leave every gentleman and every lady to answer for themselves.  I am unable to describe it.  Shall the capital of your country longer exhibit scenes so revolting to humanity, that the ladies of your country cannot visit it without disgust?  No; wipe off the foul stain, and let it become a suitable and comfortable place for the seat of Government.  The Senator, as if conscious that his argument on this point had proved too much, and of course had proven the converse of what he wished to establish, concluded this part by saying, that if slavery is abolished, the act ought to be confined to the city alone.  We thank him for this small sprinkling of correct opinion upon this arid waste of public feeling.  Liberty may yet vegetate and grow even here.

The Senator insists that the States of Virginia and Maryland would never have ceded this District if they had have thought slavery would ever have been abolished in it.  This is an old story twice told.  It was never, however, thought of, until the slave power imagined it, for its own security.  Let the States ask a retrocession of the District, and I am sure the free States will rejoice to make the grant.

The Senator condemns the abolitionists for desiring that slavery should not exist in the Territories, even in Florida.  He insists that, by the treaty, the inhabitants of that country have the right to remove their EFFECTS when they please; and that, by this condition, they have the right to retain their slaves as effects, independently of the power of Congress.  I am no diplomatist, sir, but I venture to deny the conclusion of the Senator’s argument.  In all our intercourse with foreign nations, in all our treaties in which the words “goods, effects,” &c. are used, slaves have never been considered as included.  In all cases in which slaves are the subject matter of controversy, they are specially named by the word “slaves; and, if I remember rightly, it has been decided in Congress, that slaves are not property for which a compensation shall be made when taken for public use, (or rather, slaves cannot be considered as taken for public use,) or as property by the enemy, when they are in the service of the United States.  If I am correct, as I believe I am, in the positions I have assumed, the gentleman can say nothing, by this part of his argument, against abolitionists, for asking that slavery shall not exist in Florida.”