to persons who come from the free States, especially to their Christian and moral feelings.  It is a great hindrance to the proper discharge of their duties while here.  Remove slavery from this District, and this evil will disappear.  We argue this circumstance alone as sufficient cause to produce that effect.  But slavery presents within the District other and still more appalling scenes—­scenes well calculated to awaken the deepest emotions of the human heart.  The slave-trade exists here in all its HORRORS, and unwhipt of all its crimes.  In view of the very chair which you now occupy, Mr. President, if the massy walls of this building, did not prevent it, you could see the prison, the pen, the HELL, where human beings, when purchased for sale, are kept until a cargo can be procured for transportation to a Southern or foreign market, for I have little doubt slaves are carried to Texas for sale, though I do not know the fact.

Sir, since Congress have been in session, a mournful group of these unhappy beings, some thirty or forty, were marched, as if in derision of members of Congress, in view of your Capitol, chained and manacled together, in open day-light, yes, in the very face of heaven itself, to be shipped at Baltimore for a foreign market.  I did not witness this cruel transaction, but speak from what I have heard and believe.  Is this District, then, a fit place for our deliberations, whose feelings are outraged with impunity with transactions like this?  Suppose, sir, that mournful and degrading spectacle was at this moment exhibited under the windows of our chamber, do you think the Senate could deliberate, could continue with that composure and attention which I see around me?  No, sir; all your powers could not preserve order for a moment.  The feelings of humanity would overcome those of regard for the peculiar institutions of the States; and though we would be politically and legally bound not to interfere, we are not morally bound to withhold our sympathy and our execration in witnessing such inhuman traffic.  This traffic alone, in this District, renders it an uncomfortable and unfit place for your seat of Government.  Sir, it is but one or two years since I saw standing at the railroad depot, as I passed from my boarding house to this chamber, some large wagons and teams, as if waiting for freight; the cars had not then arrived.  I was inquired of, when I returned to my lodgings, by my landlady, if I knew the object of those wagons which I saw in the morning.  I replied, I did not; I suppose they came and were waiting for loading.  “Yes, for slaves,” said she; “and one of those wagons was filled with little boys and little girls, who had been bought up through the country, and were to be taken to a southern market.  Ah, sir!” continued she, “it made my very heart ache to see them.”  The very recital unnerved and unfitted me for thought or reflection on any other subject for some time.  It is scenes like this,