Had such men held the opposite doctrine, and admitted, yea, and insisted, as it was their duty to do, that every question in morals and politics is a legitimate subject of free discussion—­the District of Columbia would be far less objectionable, as the seat of our Government.  In that case the lamented Dr. Crandall would not have been seized in the city of Washington on the suspicion of being an abolitionist, and thrown into prison, and subjected to distresses of mind and body, which resulted in his premature death.  Had there been no slavery in the District, this outrage would not have been committed; and the murders, chargeable on the bloodiest of all bloody institutions, would have been one less than they now are.  Talk of the slaveholding District of Columbia being a suitable locality for the seat of our Government!  Why, Sir, a distinguished member of Congress was threatened there with an indictment for the crime of presenting, or rather of proposing to present, a petition to the body with which he was connected!  Indeed the occasion of the speech, on which I am now commenting, was the impudent protest of inhabitants of that District against the right of the American people to petition their own Congress, in relation to matters of vital importance to the seat of their own Government!  I take occasion here to admit, that I have seen but references to this protest—­not the protest itself.  I presume, that it is not dissimilar, in its spirit, to the petition presented about the same time by Mr. Moore in the other House of Congress—­his speech on which, he complains was ungenerously anticipated by yours on the petition presented by yourself.  As the petition presented by Mr. Moore is short, I will copy it, that I may say to you with the more effect—­how unfit is the spirit of a slaveholding people, as illustrated in this petition, to be the spirit of the people at the seat of a free Government!

[Footnote A:  “It (slavery) is a sin and a curse both to the master and the slave:”—­Henry Clay.]

“To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

The petition of the undersigned, citizens of the District of Columbia represents—­That they have witnessed with deep regret the attempts which are making to disturb the integrity of the Union by a BAND OF FANATICS, embracing men, women, and children, who cease not day and night to crowd the tables of your halls with SEDITIOUS MEMORIALS—­and solicit your honorable bodies that you will, in your wisdom, henceforth give neither support nor countenance to such UNHALLOWED ATTEMPTS, but that you will, in the most emphatic manner, set the seal of your disapprobation upon all such FOUL AND UNNATURAL EFFORTS, by refusing not only to READ and REFER, but also to RECEIVE any papers which either directly or indirectly, or by implication, aim at any interference with the rights of your petitioners, or of those of any citizen of any of the States or Territories of the United States, or of this District of which we are inhabitants.”