Condemned at home for my opposition to slavery, alone and singlehanded here, well may I feel tremor and emotion in bearding this lion of slavery in his very den and upon his own ground.  I should shrink, sir, at once, from this fearful and unequal contest, was I not thoroughly convinced that I am sustained by the power of truth and the best interests of the country.

I listened to the Senator of Kentucky with undivided attention.  I was disappointed, sadly disappointed.  I had heard of the Senator’s tact in making compromises and agreements on this floor, and though opposed in principle to all such proceedings, yet I hoped to hear something upon which we could hang a hope that peace would be restored to the borders of our own States, and all future aggression upon our citizens from the free States be prevented.  Now, sir, he offers us nothing but unconditional submission to political death; and not political alone, but absolute death.  We have counted the cost in this matter, and are determined to live or die free.  Let the slaveholder hug his system to his bosom in his own State, we will not go there to disturb him; but, sir, within our own borders we claim to enjoy the same privileges.  Even, sir, here in this District, this ten miles square of common property and common right, the slave power has the assurance to come into this very Hall, and request that we—­yes, Mr. President, that my constituents—­be denied the right of petition on the subject of slavery in this District.  This most extraordinary petition against the right of others to petition on the same subject of theirs, is graciously received and ordered to be printed; paeans sung to it by the slave power, while the petitions I offer, from as honorable, free, high-minded and patriotic American citizens as any in this District, are spit upon, and turned out of doors as an unclean thing!  Genius of liberty! how long will you sleep under this iron power of oppression?  Not content with ruling over their own slaves, they claim the power to instruct Congress on the question of receiving petitions; and yet we are tauntingly and sneeringly told that we have nothing to do with the existence of slavery in the country, a suggestion as absurd as it is ridiculous.  We are called upon to make laws in favor of slavery in the District, but it is denied that we can make laws against it; and at last the right of petition on the subject, by the people of the free States, is complained of as an improper interference.  I leave it to the Senator to reconcile all these difficulties, absurdities, claims and requests of the people of this District, to the country at large; and I venture the opinion that he will find as much difficulty in producing the belief that he is correct now, that he has found in obtaining the same belief that he was before correct in his views and political course on the subject of banks, internal improvements, protective tariffs, &c., and the regulation, by acts of Congress, of the productive