with a different view, and for different purposes.  I came a free man, to represent the people of Ohio; and I intend to leave this as such representative, without wearing any other livery.  Why talk about executive usurpation and influence over the members of Congress?  I have always viewed this District influence as far more dangerous than that of any other power.  It has been able to extort, yes, extort from Congress, millions to pay District debts, make District improvements, and in support of the civil and criminal jurisprudence of the District.  Pray, sir, what right has Congress to pay the corporate debts of the cities in the District more than the Debts of the corporate cities in your State and mine?  None, sir.  Yet this has been done to a vast amount; and the next step is, that we, who pay all this, shall not be permitted to petition Congress on the subject of their institutions, for, if we can be prevented in one case, we can in all possible cases.  Mark, sir, how plain a tale will silence these petitioners.  If slavery in the District concerns only the inhabitants and Congress, so does all municipal regulations.  Should they extend to granting lottery, gaming-houses, tippling-houses, and other places calculated to promote and encourage vice—­should a representative in Congress be instructed by his constituents to use his influence, and vote against such establishments, and the people of the District should instruct him to vote for them, which should he obey?  To state the question is to answer it; otherwise the boasted right of instruction by the constituent body is “mere sound,” signifying nothing.  Sir, the inhabitants of this district are subject to state legislation and state policy; they cannot complain of this, for their condition is voluntary; and as this city is the focus of power, of influence, and considered also as that of fashion, if not of folly, and as the streams which flow from here irradiate the whole country, it is right, it is proper, that it should be subject to state policy and state power, and not used as a leaven to ferment and corrupt the whole body politic.

The honorable Senator has said the petition, though from a city, is the fair expression of the opinion of the District.  As such I treated it, am willing to acknowledge the respectability of the petitioners and their rights, and I claim for the people of my own state equal respectability and equal rights that the people of the District are entitled to:  any peculiar rights and advantages I cannot admit.

I agree with the Senator, that the proceedings on abolition petitions, heretofore, have not been the most wise and prudent course.  They ought to have been referred and acted on.  Such was my object, a day or two since, when I laid on your table a resolution to refer them to a committee for inquiry.  You did not suffer it, sir, to be printed.  The country and posterity will judge between the people whom I represent and those who caused to be printed the petition